Adrian Wilson

Adrian Wilson (1923–1988) was an American book designer and author of the influential 1967 work entitled The Design of Books.

Early life and education Adrian Wilson was born on 1 July 1923 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and raised in Beverly, Massachusetts.

In 1958, he sold his press and, along with his wife, began a tour of Europe where they met Will Carter, John Dreyfus, Hermann Zapf, Stanley Morison, Beatrice Warde, and Giovanni Mardersteig. In 1983, he was an early recipient of a MacArthur Foundation award.

He developed an interest in early book illustration, leading to his The Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle (1976), and (with his wife) A Medieval Mirror (1984), an account of early printed editions of the Speculum Humanae Salvationis.

He died of congestive heart failure on 3 February 1988 in a hospital in San Francisco.