In April of 1958, the Type Directors Club of New York and the World Affairs Center, New York organized a one day conference, The Art and Science of Typography: An International Seminar of Typographic Design, at the Silvermine Artists Guild in New Canaan, Connecticut. More that 500 attendees from around the world, including Willem Sandberg (Netherlands), Herbert Spencer, Yusaka Kamekure, Otl Aicher and Cipes Pineles participated.
Ismar David and Hortense Mendel attended some of the functions. Hortense described her involvement in the whirlwind of events:
In the “extra-curricular” department I’m just finishing with whatever little help I’ve been on the Type Directors seminar. In addition to the day at Silvermine, and the following one there too for a panel, there was the following evening in New York and the one after that with more panels and speakers. There was a Type Directors lunch on Tuesday and the A.I.G.A Book Clinic lunch on Wednesday. There was a C.R. boat ride for the foreign guests and some designers they wanted to meet on Friday. More meetings with artists on Friday evening. Sunday (yesterday) a trek to the beautiful home and studio of Lester Beall in Brookfield Center, Conn. How our distinguished guests from Japan, England, Holland and Italy stood up under it, I don’t know. We did because we’re used to it, but I think they now feel that all Americans are slightly crazy and most designers here (judging by Paul Rand’s and Lester Beall’s places) are fabulously wealthy.1Letter from Hortense Mendel David to Katharine R. Bernard, Ismar David papers, box 3, folder 65, Cary Graphic Arts Collection, RIT.
