Typeface (directed by Justine Nagan and produced by Kartemquin Films, whose best-known work is the distinguished 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams) is the documentary about The Hamilton Wood Type Museum in rural Two Rivers, Wisconsin, a struggling industrial town on Lake Michigan about an 90 minutes north of Milwaukee, houses over 1.5 million wood letterforms. Currently, these letters are not behind glass or partitions, but are instead organized and available for the layperson or artist to consider, hold, and if they attend a workshop, use for printing.
Once mighty Hamilton Wood Type factory in Two Rivers, Wisconsin,it’s now a museum and workshop, struggling with vanishing skills, a dripping roof and endless boxes of uncatalogued wood type. What an amazing place loosing its spirit.