Will Carter was born in 1912 and died in 2001. After school at Radley, he joined the Woking printers Unwin Brothers and in 1934 moved to Cambridge to work as designer for Heffers’ printing works. His part-time home printing office, the Rampant Lions Press, issued its first title for sale in 1936, and after service in the Navy during the War, he set up on his own.
Will spent progessively more time on his parallel career of lettercutting in wood and stone, the subject of the exhibition ‘Will Carter: Man of letters’ held at the Lettering Arts Trust gallery in Snape Maltings in early 2022, and in the Cripps Gallery at Magdalene College, Cambridge, later that year. His type designs are described in Sebastian Carter’s The Type Designs of Will Carter, published by The Typophiles, New York, in 2023.
Will was given the Frederic W Goudy Award in 1975, and was made an honorary fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1977. He was artist in residence at Darmouth College, New Hampshire in 1969, and was a member of the Royal Mint Advisory Committee from 1971 to 1991. He received the OBE in 1984.
Rampant Lions Press 