Lunchtime Lectures: The Jobbing Printing Collection: Modern commercial typography in the V&A's National Art Library

You may not expect to find early 20th century modernist graphic design ephemera in the V&A’s National Art Library.  In this Lunchtime Lecture we explore how and why Philip James (appointed Keeper of the Library in 1937) acquired examples of Commercial Typography at that particular moment in time. We will describe how the collection’s status, function and use has evolved alongside changes in the National Art Library and highlight the Jobbing Printing collection’s relevance to graphic designers, printing historians and other researchers today.


Sandy Jones is an Assistant Curator of Architecture and Urbanism who has a special interest in graphic design and the work of German typographer and educator, Jan Tschichold (1902-1974). She has been researching the Jobbing Printing Collection since 2017 and presented papers on the collection in Germany, Switzerland, UK and US.

Deborah Sutherland has worked in the National Art Library for more than 25 years.  Her interest in graphic design history began with curating the Trade Literature collection and expanded to curating Jobbing Printing in 2015.  She is currently researching what the collection reveals about developments in printing processes in the 1930s.