Michael Twyman

Michael Twyman (born 1934) is a Professor Emeritus of the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading. He joined the university staff in 1959. He established a BA (Hons) course in Typography & Graphic Communication which eventually grew into its own department in 1974. Both the programme and the department are widely acknowledged to be the first of their kind in the world. He retired from full-time teaching in 1998 but still teaches postgraduate students and is also the Director of the Centre for Ephemera Studies.

He has been a visiting teacher at Rare Book Schools in Virginia, Lyons, Wellington and Melbourne. For many years he has served as Vice-President of the Printing Historical Society and in 2016 he succeeded Asa Briggs as President of the Ephemera Society.

Twyman is often cited for his works on the history of printing and ephemera, especially lithography. In addition, he is well known for his writings on the theory of graphic language. He also completed and edited Maurice Rickards' book ''Encyclopedia of Ephemera'' (London: British Library, 2000). He was an early member of the Printing Historical Society and has edited and contributed to issues of its ''Journal''.

In 1983 he was awarded the Samuel Pepys Medal for his Outstanding Contribution to Ephemera Studies, and in 2014 the Sir Misha Black award and was added to the College of Medallists. In 2021 he received the Gold Medal of the Bibliographical Society of London for distinguished services to bibliography.

Twyman is not to be confused with lawyer and conservative thinker Michael Tweyman of Toronto, Ontario. Provided by Wikipedia