Frederic Warde was a typographic designer. He was born in Wells, Minnesota

Wells, Minnesota

As of the census of 2000, there were 2,494 people, 1,032 households, and 665 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,846.5 people per square mile . There were 1,097 housing units at an average density of 812.2 per square mile...

, enlisted in the United States Army in 1915 and attended the Army School of Military Aeronautics at the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

 during 1917-1918. On demobilisation he worked as a book editor for Macmillan & Co

Macmillan Publishers

Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others.-History:...

 before undergoing training on the Monotype machine, after which he worked for the printers Edwin Rudge. He had met Beatrice Becker

Beatrice Warde

Beatrice Warde , was a communicator on typography. She was the only daughter of May Lamberton Becker, a journalist on the staff of the New York Herald Tribune, and Gustave Becker, composer and teacher.Beatrice was educated at Barnard College at Columbia University...

 in 1919 and they married in December 1922. Warde was Printer for Princeton University (1922–1924). The couple moved to England in late 1924 for Warde had been offered work by the typographer Stanley Morison

Stanley Morison

Stanley Morison was an English typographer, designer and historian of printing.Born in Wanstead, Essex, Morison spent most of his childhood and early adult years at the family home in Fairfax Road, Harringay...

, designing for The Fleuron and the Monotype Recorder. The marriage did not last; they separated in 1926, and quickly divorced, though the break-up was an amicable one.

Afterward Warde lived in France and Italy, where he became involved in Giovanni Mardersteig’s Officina Bodoni

Officina Bodoni

The Officina Bodoni was a private press operated by Giovanni Mardersteig from 1922. It was named after the great eighteenth-century Italian typographer Giambattista Bodoni...

. Warde designed a revival of the chancery cursive letter forms of Renaissance calligrapher Ludovico degli Arrighi

Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi

Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi was a papal scribe, and type designer in Renaissance Italy.Very little is known of the circumstances of his life. He may have started his career as a writing master in Venice, although this has been disputed....

. This italic, titled Arrighi, was designed as a companion to Bruce Roger's roman typeface Centaur

Centaur (typeface)

Centaur is a Humanist Type Family originally drawn as titling capitals by Bruce Rogers in 1914 for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The matrices were cut by Robert Wiebking and the type was privately cast by the American Type Foundery. The typeface is based upon several Renaissance models...

. In 1926 Mardersteig printed The Calligraphic Manual of Ludovico Arrighi - complete Facsimile, with an introduction by Stanley Morison, which Warde issued in Paris while working for the Pleiad Press.

The Monotype Corporation

Monotype Corporation

Monotype Imaging Holdings is a Delaware corporation based in Woburn, Massachusetts and specializing in typesetting and typeface design as well as text and imaging solutions for use with consumer electronics devices. Monotype Imaging Holdings is the owner of Monotype Imaging Inc., Linotype,...

 published in 1928 Warde's Printers Ornaments on the Monotype.

Warde returned to America permanently and he worked again for Edwin Rudge from 1927 to 1932, and also designed for private presses such as Crosby Gaige, the Watch Hill Press, Bowling Green Press, the Limited Editions Club and Heritage Press. Warde worked as production manager for the American office of the Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...

from 1937 until his death in 1939.