Caslon’s Rounded Ornamented takes a trip
Tanya George, a typographer and type designer in Mumbai, was inspired by the St. Bride story in TYPE No. 1. As part of Inktober, she’s made a linocut of the letter M from the 1846 ornamented, rounded, sans serif from Caslon. St. Bride Library has the punches in its collection, and supplied the amazing macro photographs of the business end of a number of punches in their collection. The punch cutter: F. Boileau.
George, a graduate of Reading, posted this image on Twitter, showing the linocut and a proof. George’s blog shows more of her work.
Here’s the spread in the print edition of TYPE, with the 1836 rounded sans on the right. The thing to remember is that these are steel punches!
There’s something pleasant about seeing the 19th century steel flowers given a little hand-cut Brahmic feeling, like Maharashtrian jewelry. It makes me wonder where the style of ornamentation style came from. It’s not the elegant Moorish “Italianate” ornaments from the 15th century.
In 1846 there was plenty of art from India in London. Had Boileau been to show at the East India Company's Indian Museum?
