One of the first decisions I made for my author website was choosing the font to be used for my logo.

The creative team at Monkey C Media asked me to react to various styles, then suggested a font based on the Doves Press typeface. 

I had never heard of it. 

While I liked the font, it didn’t stand out for me until I looked at it its nuances – a cool tail on the capital ‘R’ and a lowercase “i” with an askew dot – more closely. And when they briefed me on its history, I was sold!

I devoured details explaining the origins of the font using the sites The Doves Type® – Typespec and Recovering The Doves Type® – Typespec. I encourage you to follow those links to read more.

• In 1900, the Doves Press was founded by two business partners, T. J. Cobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker, in Hammersmith, London. Their Press produced some of the finest and most notable examples of twentieth century typography using their bespoke typeface.
• They chose the name “Doves” based on a famous public ale house of the same name which was frequented by the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Dylan Thomas.
• The partnership was dissolved in 1909 and part of their agreement was to share their beloved type; Cobden-Sanderson would keep the rights until his death, at which time the rights and metal plates would pass to Walker.
• But Cobden-Sanderson did not want his former partner to use this typeface, so in 1916 he began systematically dumping more than a ton of lead type over the Hammersmith Bridge into the Thames River!
• The much beloved font was thought to be lost forever, until British designer, Robert Green, obsessed with recreating this typeface, began finding pieces in the River Thames, close to 100 years after Cobden-Sanderson “dedicated and consecrated” the metal type over the Hammersmith Bridge.
• With the help of the Port of London Authority divers, over 150 pieces were recovered, and Green digitally replicated the Doves font to be used and enjoyed by people like me.

In addition to enjoying this fascinating story, three coincidences between its history and my manuscript-in-progress made me choose this font:

• Location: Hammersmith Bridge is less than 10kms from Lord Northcliffe’s Carmelite House office near Fleet Street. This is where he ruled his newspaper empire, including his papermill in my hometown of Grand Falls, Newfoundland. It is quite likely the Doves Press partners and Northcliffe would have been known to one another as both publishing businesses were flourishing during the first decade of the 20^th century.
• The year the Doves Press partnership dissolved, 1909, was the same year Lord and Lady Northcliffe opened their newsprint mill and visited their new Tudor estate, Grand Falls House. One business was dissolving while the other was burgeoning.
• While Cobden-Sanderson was dumping his Doves lead pieces into the Thames in the summer of 1916, my grandfather (and my manuscript’s fictionalized character Eli MacPhail), were in hospital in London recovering from injuries inflicted during the devastating WWI battle at Beaumont Hamel, France. Might Cobden-Sanderson and Eli MacPhail crossed paths in a dark London alley or had a drink at a local pub?

A unique font with an intriguing history and a few tangential links to my manuscript. How could I choose anything but the Doves Press font for my logo?

I hope you enjoy it as much as me!

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