Getty-Dubay Italic began in 1979 as the collaboration between two like-minded educators. Both Inga Dubay and Barbara Getty are artists, calligraphers and educators. They recognized the need for an alternative to the then-traditional system for learning handwriting. Getty and Dubay set about creating instruction books for children — all handwritten — that were soon widely adopted by schools. A handwriting book for adults came in 1991, as well as two instruction books on calligraphy. Today, Getty-Dubay Italic is in use in business and education throughout the United States and internationally.
Getty and Dubay have offered 170 Rx for Handwriting Success seminars for medical professionals across the United States, and also have presented at the World Health Organization in Copenhagen, Denmark and the International Patient Safety Conference in Florence, Italy. Each, as an artist in her own right, has taught handwriting and calligraphy as faculty in schools and colleges in the Pacific Northwest.
Getty-Dubay Italic has been featured in more than 75 journals and on television & radio including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine and NBC’s “Good Morning America”.
Getty and Dubay have written eleven books to bring beauty and ease to the everyday act of writing. They began their mission in 1979 to provide a new, viable handwriting system for children with the seven developmentally appropriate workbooks that make up the Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting Series. These books and accompanying Instruction Manual are now in use in many schools and thousands of homes in America and abroad. From their decades of experience helping adults change or improve their handwriting, they created the self-guided instruction book, Write Now: the Getty-Dubay Program for Handwriting Success.
The legacy of their mentors in calligraphy, including that of Lloyd J. Reynolds, is in evidence in all their books, especially in their calligraphy instruction book for adults, Italic Letters. Dubay has also authored a calligraphy book for students, Getty-Dubay Italic Calligraphy for School & Home as a companion to the Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting Series. Italic Calligraphy is the product of an unique program by Reed College to bring calligraphy into elementary school classrooms.
Celebration of the 40th anniversary will include a vendor exhibit at the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development 2019 Conference in Chicago, Illinois, and many more events to come!