Robert Kinross, born in Chipperfield, UK, in 1949. M.Phil from the University of Reading. Typographer, editor and writer at Hyphen Press, London.
KB Fellow (1 April 2009 – 30 June 2009)
STANDARDIZATION OF PAPER SIZES IN PRE-INDUSTRIAL EUROPE
Years ago I began research on paper standardisation in the 20th century. With the offer of the KB/NIAS Fellowship I saw the possibility to extend this research backwards, to pre-industrial paper sizes: a topic that has been raised occasionally, but of which no proper history has been written. In my view, the sizes at which sheets of paper have been made can be a focus of technical and economic factors, as well as providing insights into printing and publishing practices over a long period. My five months’ period of research was devoted to absorbing the existing literature of the topic, and to planning a book on the subject. The main result of the Fellowship was a lecture, “A4 and before: towards a long history of paper sizes”, which I gave in June 2009, and which was published then as a booklet in Dutch and English editions.