Ray Nichols
Lead Graffiti
Ray is a principal with his wife Jill Cypher in Lead Graffiti, a letterpress shop in Newark, Delaware.
At the start of 2007 Ray retired as professor and director of Visual Communications Group from the University of Delaware where he also coordinated the Advertising Design Program. In October 2008 he was honored for his career of teaching by the Art Directors Club of New York with the inaugural exhibition entitled Grandmasters, From One Came Many.
Ray's teaching efforts included co-directing the program's study abroad program, five weeks in London each summer, from 2001 - 2005. It was during these London trips taking students to the St. Bride Printing Library, The British Library, The Type Museum, workshops at the Typography Workshop with Alan Kitching, visits to the Royal College of Art, and visiting a number of private presses including one to I.M. Imprint, that Ray and Jill caught the letterpress bug.
For more than twenty years he has been a principal with his wife Jill in Cypher + Nichols + Design. Through this design studio they have produced a wide variety of projects including corporate identities, advertising, annual reports, posters, logos and Web sites for a number of clients including Direct Radiography, Hagley Museum and Library, Winterthur Museum and Gardens, Delaware Manufacturing Alliance, Alanx, Lanxide, Esquire Magazine and the University of Delaware.
The work produced at C+N+D has been exhibited in a number of national and regional exhibitions and design annuals including the Art Directors Club of New York, The One Club, Graphis Posters, Print Regional, the American Center for Design and the Advertising Club of Delaware.
Through Raven Press and working with Center Director Bernie Herman and his directed writing course during the fall of 2004, Ray helped produce the 108-page documentation of the New London Road Village shown below. With Raven Press co-director Bill Deering he presented a paper at the 2003 national conference of the American Printing History Association illustrating the use of letterpress imagery in contemporary advertising.
In late 2007 Ray and Jill completed design, photography and publication of a 300-page book for the City of Newark, Delaware's 250th anniversary entitled Histories of Newark: 1758-2008.
Five pieces of their work were included in Steven Heller's book, New Vintage Type.
Ray and Jill now own and operate Lead Graffiti, a letterpress shop that produces both commercial work as well as personal projects. Their letterpress printing equipment includes two iron handpresses, two Vandercooks, two Chandler & Price, a Heidelberg Windmill, 600 cases of metal and wood type which is operated out of a 2,200 square foot studio space located at 120A Sandy Drive in Newark, Delaware.
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Illustrations above - Keepsake for attendees to the APHA National Conference 2008; broadside produced with a Delaware College of Art & Design workshop; two calendar pages for APA; wedding invitation which includes eight-page booklet; People were close book on the New London Road Community, Newark, Delaware; and the Histories of Newark: 1758-2008.
You can see additional work by Ray on Jill Cypher's member's page.
Memberships:
Amalgamated Printers Association (APA) | website
American Printing History Association (APHA) | website / Chesapeak Chapter
Vice President, Chesapeak Chapter
Program Committee / Chair
Delaware Bibliophiles
Fine Press Book Association | website
William Morris Society | website
.918 Club / Lancaster, PA | website
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