#devinne

🔊 Devinne – Baila Baila (Original Mix) 🎧 Download/Stream: http://bit.ly/baila-baila 🎵 Support Purple Haze Records ↪︎ https://www.instagram.com/recpurplehaze ↪︎ https://soundcloud.com/recpurplehaze ↪︎ https://www.facebook.com/recpurplehazeofficial

The Uddins Indian restaurant in Taunton, Somerset, looks like it’s served its last dish of Chicken Vindaloo, but the lingering signage has yet to be removed. There’s obviously something faintly oriental about the font, Devinne Swash or Devinne Ornamental, although why that should be is an interesting question.

Devinne Ornamental, which is based on a Deberny & Peignot typeface called Les Modernes from around 1900. The typeface is named after the renowned American printer Theodore Low DeVinne (1828-1914). According to myfonts.com, its style has become synonymous with the Art Noveau period, which was raging internationally when DeVinne Ornamental’s letters were first drawn. The typeface is named after the renowned American printer Theodore Low DeVinne (1828-1914).

Theodore De Vinne was a 19th century printer and publisher. He didn’t design this typeface; Nick Shinn, the typographer and type historian, gives the following quote from De Vinne about the typeface’s inception:

Pickwick's Tea Room in Taunton, Somerset, is not the only shop hereabouts that has plumped for the plumpish Devinne Swash typeface for their signage.

Theodore De Vinne was a 19th century printer and publisher. He didn't design this typeface; Nick Shinn, the typographer and type historian, gives the following background:

Elzevir, originally designed in the late 18th century, was revived in France in the 1880s and enjoyed a return to popularity in the USA, inspiring Gustav Schroeder's “De Vinne” of 1893 (Elzevir Bold, really), which became the most popular typeface of the 1890s. It was named after Theodore De Vinne, the leading figure in American typography. He was a printer in the wide sense of the term as it was then employed, a publisher of books and magazines, instigator of coated paper, co-founder of the Grolier Club for bibliophiles, and an authority on typography who wrote extensively on the subject. Of the eponymous face, De Vinne said, “This face is the outcome of correspondence (1888-90) between the senior of the De Vinne Press [meaning himself] and Mr. J. A. St. John of the Central Type Foundry of St. Louis, concerning the need of plainer types of display, to replace the profusely ornamented types in fashion, of which the printers of that time had a surfeit. The DeVinne Press suggested a return to the simplicity of the true old-style character, but with the added features of thicker lines and adjusted proportion in shapes of letters. Mr. St. John approved, but insisted on grotesques to some capital letters in the belief that they would meet a general desire for more quaintness. Mr. Werner of the Central Type Foundry was instructed to draw and cut the proposed face in all sizes from 6- to 72-point, which task he executed with great ability. The name given to this face by Mr. St. John is purely complimentary, for no member of the De Vinne Press has any claim on the style as inventor or designer. Its merits are largely due to Mr. Werner; its few faults of uncouth capitals show a desire to please eccentric tastes and to conform to old usage. The new face found welcome here and abroad; no advertising face of recent production had a greater sale.”