Bruce Kennett’s Presentation of W.A. Dwiggins

The Ballard Institute is holding a Spring Puppet Forum Series this year. As part of the series Bruce Kennett held a talk on March 29th. (http://bimp.uconn.edu/2017/03/14/w-a-dwiggins-puppetry-and-graphic-design-with-bruce-kennett-on-329-at-7-p-m/) Bruce Kennett is a graphic designer and author who has written for years about puppeteer and graphic designer, William Addison Dwiggins. On March 29th, the Ballard Theater hosted Kennett’s talk about Dwiggins. The event was attended by both fine art students and members of the community. The event was both filmed and livestreamed on Facebook.

I did not know anything about Dwiggins other than he was a puppeteer and graphic designer, as stated in the email advertisement I had received. Though I am a 3D Animation Major within the Digital Media & Design school, I am invested in graphic design both traditionally and digitally. The talk mainly focused on the puppet arts aspect of Dwiggins career, since it was hosted by the Ballard Theater. Having almost no prior education of puppetry, I learned a lot.

Dwiggins was from Hingham, Massachusetts during the early 1900s to 1950s. I live fairly close to Hingham, so I was somewhat familiar to Dwiggins’ hometown. He established a group of puppeteers called Püterschein Authority. He held all his performances in hometown of Hingham. He designed the sets and marionette puppets himself. There were about 30 Dwiggins puppets within his career. One of these puppets was Dwiggins himself. After a performance Dwiggins would take a bow in front of the crowd, walk back stage, and a 12 inch Dwiggins marionette would walk on set and bow.

The way Dwiggins designed his puppets was incorporated into the design of his fonts. Puppets with angular faces were often sophisticated. Likewise, angular and narrow fonts were designed by him to give off a look of sophistication. Dwiggins went as far to criticize and redesign the US note, stating that the US dollar was fat and clunky. His solution was to give the note a sophisticated look with the use of his angular and narrow font.

Another aspect of Dwiggins graphic design was his use of stencils. He painted colorful stencil pictures. He used flat colored shapes to form full paintings of figures and objects. Shadows were given different colors and the empty space of the white paper created the highlights. Dwiggins made designs for local businesses and advertisements for his shows.

The humanities often find themselves in the arts, either subtly or directly. Dwiggins found ways to make advertisement designs speak to people on a subconscious level. We may not think about it, but different types of fonts give different feelings. Dwiggins discovered the thin and angular text can make any word look fancy. Overall the talk had some very interesting points and was almost entirely new to me. I learned a lot about Dwiggins puppets and his contributions to graphic design.