TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Thu Nov 28 18:59:32 EST 2024

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ABOUT

Doves Type [Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson]

Doves Type was from Doves Press, founded in 1900 by Thomas J. Cobden-Sanderson (a disciple of William Morris) and Emery Walker. They had type based on Jenson. Thomas J. Cobden-Sanderson threw the typefaces in the Thames when the press closed in 1916 to prevent anyone from using it again. Ben Archer writes: although William Morris's Golden Type predated this design, it is thought that the Doves Type was more faithful to the design of the original Venetian type of the fifteenth century. Punches were cut by Edward Prince on the instructions of Walker and Cobden Sanderson in a single size and weight only, and used for printing the Doves Press edition of the Bible. This celebrated type was used privately for sixteen years and never released to the general trade. It was lost to history forever when Cobden Sanderson threw the entire font into the Thames river, provoking a bitter argument with his business partner, the master printer Emery Walker.

Cobden-Sanderson was born in 1840 in Alnwick, Northumberland, and died in London in 1922.

Digital revivals:

• Doves Press Type (1994, Torbjörn Olsson). A six-font family.
• The Doves Type (2013-2015, Robert Green). Green writes: This is Robert Green's digital facsimile interpretation of the Doves Press Fount of Type, conceived and commissioned 1899 by TJ Cobden-Sanderson for the Doves Press, Hammersmith, developed by Emery Walker and Percy Tiffin at Walker and Boutall, Hammersmith, created and cut by Edward Prince, Islington, and cast by Miller & Richard Foundry, Edinburgh, 1899-1901. This facsimile was recreated using printed impressions from Doves Press publications & original metal sorts recovered by Robert Green from the River Thames, London, November 2014.
• In 2016, Alan Hayward (Lausanne, Switzerland) designed Mebinac, a text typeface based on Thomas James Cobden's Doves (1900).
• Raphaël Verona and Gaël Faure co-designed the commercial typeface Thames Capsule (2015-2016). Robert Green (a PhD student at Central Saint Martins / the University of the Arts, London, and creator of The Doves Type in 2013) claims the following: It's basically a pirated version of my font with some details changed. They used all of my research, took my font and knocked up a quick cash-in. I checked their files, and around 90% of their bezier nodes are in the exact same positions as the version of my Doves Type that was available at the time: a mathematical impossibility if you're creating a revival from scratch.

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INTERNAL LINKS
Extinct 20th century foundries ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Type design in the United Kingdom ⦿ Venetian or antiqua typefaces ⦿