the class-o-matic

"Bradbury Thompson was truly a master of almost every aspect of the design profession. 
He studied printing production, was an art director for Mademoisellemagazine, designed books, 
pushed the boundaries of conventional typography and taught design at Yale University. 
He designed 60+ issues of Westvaco Inspirations for the Westvaco Paper Corporation. 
His designs reached thousands of designers, printers and typographers. 

Born in 1911 in Topeka, Kansas and educated at Washburn University Thompson stayed in 
touch with the university throughout his career. From 1969-1979 Thompson worked together 
with Washburn to create the Washburn Bible. The book was the most significant development 
in Bible typography since Gutenberg first published his masterpiece in 1455. Another significant 
point in his career, in the field of typography, was his publication of Alphabet 26, which was 
labeled as amonoalphabet. It contained only 26 unique characters, case was established by size 
only instead of entirely new characters (i.e. r/R, e/E, a/A). Thompson's work garnered him the 
highest award of every major design organization including AIGA, the Art Directors Club and 
the Type Directors Club. He died in 1995."