David S. Rose is a letterpress printer and graphic designer, book collector, writer and teacher of printing history and typography.
He began working with type in the book arts program at Yale University, where as an undergraduate he was a recipient of Yale’s Lohmann Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Printing and Design and Van Sinderen Book Collecting Prize for his collection on printing and typography and was awarded a Robert C. Bates Traveling Fellowship to study the fine presses, binderies and printing museums of Europe.
After establishing his first press in New York in the early 1980’s he joined the Board of Directors of the New York Center for Book Arts where he taught the History of Printing. He later served as a manager of Compuserve’s online Book Collecting and Macintosh Graphics forums. In 2001, he established the Five Roses Press to produce fine limited edition letterpress works. Its inaugural production was a large-format broadside for The Typophiles concerning Theodore Low De Vinne’s views on type design.
Beginning with the third release of the Fontographer electronic type design application, he authored an annotated historical bibliography of typography, based on his collection of historical printing and typography manuals and expanding on some of his earlier published work, which has been updated and included with each successive version of the program.
He remains closely involved with the book arts at Yale, as an Associate Fellow of Pierson College, perpetual Scribe of the Honorable Company of College Printers and founder of the Carl Purington Rollins Foundation. He is a member of the Typophiles, the Amalgamated Printers Association (#742), the American Printing History Association, and the Grolier Club. He is also a member of the Westchester Chappel of letterpress printers and was one of the designers from over 20 countries who contributed to the Font Aid II: September 11 font.