Pleasant Jefferson Conkwright (October 23, 1905 – January 31, 1986) was an American

graphic designer A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for publishe ...

and typographer for the

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent Academic publishing, publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, ...

Early life and education

P.J. Conkwright was born on October 23, 1905 in the

Oklahoma Territory The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian Territory under a new constitution and admitted to the Union as ...

to a missionary family. He was introduced to printing through his father in the creation of the

church bulletin A parish magazine is a periodical produced by and for an ecclesiastical parish, generally within the Anglican Church. It usually comprises a mixture of religious articles, community contributions, and parish notices, including the previous month� ...

and a Boy Scout troop newspaper. In 1924, Conkwright enrolled at

Oklahoma Baptist University Oklahoma Baptist University (OBU) is a private Baptist university in Shawnee, Oklahoma. It was established in 1910 under the original name of The Baptist University of Oklahoma. OBU is owned and was founded by the Baptist General Convention of ...

transferring to the

University of Oklahoma , mottoeng = "For the benefit of the Citizen and the State" , type = Public research university , established = , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.7billion (2021) , pr ...

, the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded ...

and landing at the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state's ...

where he received his BA in history. In 1929, he joined the staff at the

University of Oklahoma Press The University of Oklahoma Press (OU Press) is the publishing arm of the University of Oklahoma. Founded in 1929 by the fifth president of the University of Oklahoma, William Bennett Bizzell, it was the first university press to be established ...

where he also received his MA in English and history with an emphasis on American printing history, which was also his thesis. In 1934, he married Hazel Dale Boone.

Career

In 1939, he became the art director for the Princeton University Press and later taught design at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...

until his retirement in 1970. At Princeton, he brought innovative and modern design to the conservative academic audience of university books and transformed the university into a center for innovative design. Conkwright’s design philosophy was that the book’s design should be user-friendly for the reader: lie flat when opened; wide margins to allow for holding; stamped spine; and clear, readable type. He also chose carefully the materials to be the best possible and within budget. Many of the designers he hired also received recognition, including: Helen van Zandt, Jan Lilly, and Frank Manhood. From 1942 to 1976, he had 52 books selected for AIGA’s “Fifty Books of the Year” contest. Among the most memorable work was the multivolume ''Jefferson Papers'', where he designed the Linotype face, Monticello, for the volumes. In 1955, he received the AIGA Gold Metal in recognition of his work. In September 1956, he received a

Guggenheim fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

to study design and typography in Europe. In 1974, the received the Goudy Award. He died on January 31, 1986.

Early life and education

Career

References

Further reading