About Jerry Kelly & Nonpareil Type

For more than four decades, Jerry Kelly has devoted his life to the study and practice of letterforms. A calligrapher, book designer, and type designer, he brings a distinctly historical sensibility to every project. His work does not chase novelty. It builds on lineage.

Kelly’s approach to type design begins with careful study — examining the finest surviving models from the past or drawing new forms in ink on paper before translating them into digital form. Some of his typefaces, including Rilke and Quatern, originate in his own calligraphic hand. Others, such as Theatrum and Epigrammata, are scholarly revivals of overlooked historical types, restored for contemporary use. Kelly is not interested in wild experimentation. He is interested in continuity. In recreating historical families that have been unfairly neglected. In revisiting metal-era variants that deserve modern life. In preserving typographic intelligence rather than distorting it.

A student of Hermann Zapf and recipient of the 28th RIT Goudy Award, Kelly has been awarded more than thirty selections in AIGA’s Fifty Books of the Year for excellence in book design. Since 1978, he has been a partner at Kelly-Winterton Press, and he is co-founder of Nonpareil Type, where his work continues to reflect a deep belief: type serves a purpose, and that purpose is readability.

When asked which typeface he would take to a desert island, he chose Hermann Zapf’s Aldus — modern in execution, classical at its core. The answer feels characteristic. Jerry Kelly’s work occupies that same space: contemporary in craft, grounded in history.