Work as a Form of Procrastination — A Project Cataloging the US Patent Record
Video presentation is allowed to be used for educational purposes.
A presentation to detail a project — cataloging and organizing all typographic designs included in the US Patent record with Stephen Saxe’s publicly available database as a starting point. It originated simply as a side project intended to function as productive procrastination to distract from more robust research undertaken during a semester-long research leave. The project grew into something more than just simple procrastination and would subsequently provide opportunities to work directly with students.
David Shields is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Graphic Design in the School of the Arts, at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, and is continually working to combine academic research with classroom engagement while threading these intersections with the esoteric of administrative service. He is currently completing a monograph focused on the research, labor, and aftermath of Rob Roy Kelly’s building of the American Wood Type Collection held at the University of Texas at Austin. The book with UT Press is currently planned for publication Fall 2021.
