The Hudson Transparencies (Pentagram Paper 52) is a publication that brings together the complete set of its namesake naturalist’s work for the first time in print. Designed by Luke Powell, Jody Hudson-Powell and the team at Pentagram, Sharp Serif Text was chosen as the leading typographic voice of the booklet in addition to the accompanying exhibition of Hudson’s work. 

In the late 19th century, Charles Thomas Hudson, a Victorian educator and pioneering microscopist, created a series of 58 hand-crafted illuminated images. Now known as The Hudson Transparencies, these large-scale representations of microscopic aquatic organisms were created to accompany Hudson’s lectures. While advances in industrial mass reproduction had recently made scientific illustrations increasingly visible to the general public, Hudson’s transparencies—which are a sculptural, craft-based chimera—were notable because they could only be viewed in person, until now.

This newly published catalogue of Hudson’s work features specialized printing techniques and paper stocks to convey their illuminated quality, referencing the synthesis that defines the original transparencies and their idiosyncrasies. Sharp Serif Text is used throughout. Used across the board from display to text contexts, the designers deftly employed Lucas Sharp’s ode to the classical models of the 15th-century Italian masters and French Renaissance types. From its surprising (and effective) titling usage to its elegant execution as body text, the result is typography that feels both natural and notable from the booklet page to the exhibition wall.

Designers Luke Powell, Jody Hudson-Powell, Pentagram

Type Design Lucas Sharp