David Lance Goines was a man of many titles, from calligrapher, printer, artist and political activist to a “peculiar fellow.”

Goines experienced a stroke several months ago, according to President and co-founder of Acme Bread Company Steven Sullivan. He died in February from complications at the age of 77.

Fabled for his posters paraded all throughout Berkeley, Goines started his career during the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, Sullivan said. Joined by artist Tom Weller, Goines developed graphics for posters and flyers surrounding the movement. He eventually bought the print shop they worked out of and then began commemorating events through his art.

Weller said he worked with radical figures during the start of the Free Speech Movement and asked Goines to do lettering for the SLATE Supplement, a student political organization at UC Berkeley.

“That’s how he ended up sitting at a table on Sproul Plaza selling copies on that fateful day when the deans came around and suspended everyone manning tables, thus launching the Free Speech Movement,” Weller said in an email. “Thus he was plunged into the political upheavals of the 60s, to which he brought his characteristic intensity. He was immensely proud of his 14 arrests.”

Goines then designed posters for businesses located all over the city, from Chez Panisse to the Berkeley Horticultural Nursery and the Pacific Film Archive, Weller said. Goines captured the “muted colors of the East Bay Hills” and incorporated the distinctive color scheme into his work.

While working at the Berkeley Free Press, renamed St. Hieronymus Press after his purchase, Goines printed thousands of political leaflets for demonstrations and sit-ins, Weller said.

“David was initially this mysterious and elegant figure who came to dinner every week or two, elegantly dressed in a 19th century black cutaway suit with a bowler hat and handlebar mustache,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan met Goines in 1975 while working as a busboy at Chez Panisse. Sullivan and Goines formed a closer relationship as they became part of the same circles. Sullivan later moved into the same building as Goines’ print shop, leading to the creation of Acme Bread Company and its logo, according to Sullivan.

One night, on a trip out of the city, Goines gave Sullivan a piece of advice that inspired him to pursue baking, Sullivan said.

“ ‘At a certain point, a person just has to decide what they’re going to do,” Sullivan quoted. “‘You really want to think about what it’s going to be, you don’t want to just end up floating down a river and getting pulled into whatever happens to come up.’ ”

As a hobby, Sullivan enjoyed baking bread in the student cooperative kitchens, and said he thought to himself “maybe this is what David meant.” Sullivan said he appreciated the words from an “older and wiser” man who took an interest in him, which led him to act on his advice and open his bakery.

Before Sullivan and his wife had the bakery, Goines designed the logo of Acme Bread Company, Sullivan said. When living in the same structure as St. Hieronymus Press, Sullivan went into Goines’ press room and looked through his books of artwork and designs to get ideas for a logo.

“With his unique status as both a printer and an artist, he was the first to utilize photo-offset lithography as a fine art medium — and still the last,” Weller said in an email.