New typeface from old?

[pauland]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31188255

I find this to be a bit of a bizarre story and the idea that having an example of the old print blocks was necessary to recreate the "Doves Type" digitally, quite ridiculous.

[mwenz]

I would agree it is a bit of overkill for the redesign to go hunting in the river--especially as they released the face a year and a half ago (or thereabouts), and they ahve at least once tweaked the font. As these metal pieces have degraded so much in the water all these years, it would take very, very careful reconstruction to verify they designed it properly in the first place, and may well introduce errors in the cut.

Good printed examples would suffice just fine. Which is what they used to digitize it and redefine it already.

Modern Jenson, Centaur, ITC Berkley Old Style, Cloister Old Style, and more were based upon Nicolaus Jenson's typeface from the 1400s. So was Cobden-Sanderson's Dove typeface, the font in that article. It wasn't a unique typeface but there are differences between all the above. Just like today.

Mike

[pauland]

I wish they'd mentioned what had got them looking in the river in the first place. I guess someone found some examples of the type in the river and they decided to look for more.

[mwenz]

I believe on their web site they have the full story. But that they were thrown into the river has long been part of history.

http://www.typespec.co.uk/doves-type/

Is their web site.

Mike

[pauland]

Thanks for the link Mike,

I knew it was dumped in the Thames, but I haven't spotted anywhere how they came to be discovering it again after all those years - whether they deliberately went searching for it, or whether some Thanes mudlarks found it and gave them the idea of going looking.

I'm amazed at how much was dumped - the web site says a ton of metal.

[mwenz]

They knew the location of the business and where the likely places it would have occurred. It is obsession that would drive such a venture...something I can relate to. The amount of lead is impressive and was, I believe, his whole inventory of type.

England's insurance records, which I have used for another business of mine, are quite detailed and all include location of the premises. I used these insurance claims records to reconstruct business practices for a company in the early 1800s, original supplies used in the business operations, how many people it took to perform a given task, etc. Y'all have documentation down to a science.

Mike

[pauland]

Very impressive.

[mwenz]

Because we people in the USA largely were from England in the beginning, in the Eastern USA they also originally kept detailed records. One of my favorite books is The Artisan of Ipswich by Robert Tarule:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Artisan-Ip.../dp/0801887526

Though it is fleshed in with subjective narrative, it wouldn't have been possible to write that book as detailed as it is without the types of records Robert had access to. Other books in a similar vein, by English authors, are books like Welsh Stick Chairs by John Brown, or The Village Carpenter by Walter Rose. Or perhaps more scholarly (and less entertaining) would be Roman Woodworking by Roger Ulrich. I use to make custom furniture and those types of books were inspiring.

None of which would be possible without the records (Artisan and Roman) or first-hand accounts like the Brown and Rose books.

Mike

[gwpriester]

Lovely font.

[pauland]

An update: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31534032