The Plain Wrapper Press Redux Team

JERRY KELLY is a book designer, calligrapher, type designer, and typographer. Since the late 1970s he has designed hundreds of books for numerous clients, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Pierpont Morgan Library, The American Federation of the Arts, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, The Grolier Club, and others too numerous to mention.

His work has received numerous awards, including more than thirty selections in the prestigious “Fifty Books of the Year” awards for excellence in book design of the American Institute of Graphic Arts. In 2015 he was presented with the prestigious Goudy Award from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Following a few years working in lettering and calligraphy, he left employment in those fields to pursue a career in book design, first with the Press of A. Colish (1981–1991), and then with The Stinehour Press. After The Stinehour Press was sold, he went out on his own, designing and producing books as proprietor of Jerry Kelly LLC.

He has written many articles and several books on the subjects of calligraphy and printing, including Artist and Alphabet (The American Institute of Graphic Arts, 2000), The Fine Art of Letters: The Work of Hermann Zapf (The Grolier Club, 2000), A Century for the Century (The Grolier Club, 2000), Spend Your Alphabets Lavishly (Rochester Institute of Technology, 2007), and The First Flowering: The Work of Bruce Rogers at The Riverside Press (Club of Odd Volumes, 2008), among others. He has also taught and lectured widely, including at Pratt Institute, Cooper Union, and the Parsons School of Design.

Kelly is an active member of the American Printing History Association (where he served as Chairman of the Board and Vice President), The Grolier Club (where he has served on several committees including Modern Fine Printing), and The Typophiles (where he served as President, 2014–2015).