Beatrice No. 30

Reviving a 19th Century typeface for Type West

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Opening introductory card with a green overlay over an illustration from Dante's Purgatory with Beatrice No. 30 written front and center
Open spread of original source material from Dante. Opening to the same illustration previewed in the first image.
Additional source material pulled for reference from Bruce's Specimen Book and Bruce Old Style No. 31
Photograph of an open spread of Dante's Inferno on a table, at an angle surrounded by light.
Photograph of a 10x micro lens / loupe on top of a page of Dante's Pergatory.
Preview of original type referenced next to my type work for Beatrice No. 30
Large capital A next to a lowercase a using black and an olive green
Olive green background with large black captial letters spelling: VENGEANCE BRIGHTNESS and CELESTIAL
Black background with olive green text pulling text from Dante's Purgatory written in Beatrice No. 30
Open spread of a book with the original font replaced and swapped for Beatrice No. 30
Preview of a small paragraph set in different sizes using Beatrice No. 30
Full character preview set of Beatrice No. 30 in light grey on a black background

Why A Type Revival?

Type revivals hold a rich history in type design and play an essential role in the development and transformation of typefaces across changing technologies and time periods. They can be true to form or take on a new face of its own—transforming into something quite different. To introduce ourselves to this practice and to familiarize ourselves with the technology of our time, students of Type West were tasked with starting our own dialogue between a source of early printing from the metal type era, pre-twentieth century, and how we would study, understand, and interpret those those letterforms—bringing them into a digital space.

Beatrice No. 30 is a type revival of a late 19th century text type, Bruce Old Style No. 20 (and some help from Bruce Old Style No. 30)—and my first term project for Type West Online. I worked on this typeface over the course of 9 weeks. For the source material, I selected a library bound edition of Book II of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy: The Vision of Purgatory. It was Translated by The Rev. Henry Francis Cary (along with critical explanatory notes) and has beautiful illustrations by Gustave Doré.

View on the Letterform Archive website, along with the revivals of the whole Type West Online 2024 cohort.

Credit

Beatrice No. 30 was created with the excellent guidance and support of the Type West Online instructors and teaching assistants.

Lead Instructor: Sahar Afshar
Co-Instructor: Michele Patanè
Type History and Theory Instructor: Ewan Clayton
TAs: Nora Warschewski, Allie Schmitz, and Kurt F. Shaffert