Hawthorn by Mike Daines: a Typeface for The Silmarillion

 

FONTS IN USE is an online ‘public archive of typography’; a database of images—it started as a blog—documenting ‘type at work in the real world’. Many different kinds of graphic design are discussed; print media features heavily. It is a site I could happily roam around on for hours, and have. There are a couple of Tolkien entries; I don't recall reading about these elsewhere.

 

Snuck away in Stephen Coles' 2014 entry The Lord of the Rings, George Allen & Unwin editions, is the identification of the typeface that was used for the dustjacket of The Silmarillion (1977). Stephen Coles is co-founder of FONTS IN USE, editor at TYPOGRAPHICA, author of The Geometry of Type (Thames & Hudson, 2013), etc. The same typeface was also used for the second jacket design (c. 1973) of the UK second edition of The Lord of the Rings  i.e. the green (FR), purple (TT), and brown (RK) dustjackets; see TOLKIENBOOKS.NET 41500 (FR).

 

First edition dustjacket [photograph]

The typeface—used for both title and author (cover and spine)—is Hawthorn, designed in 1968 by Mike Daines; probably based on De Vinne, a typeface designed for the printer Theodore Low De Vinne in c. 1892. Hawthorn was created for LETRASET, who Daines worked for. LETRASET pioneered dry transfer lettering; the dustjacket type may well have been set using this method. New/old stock of LETRASET's so-called ‘rub-on transfers’ can still be found online; LETRASET stopped production of transfer sheets at some point in the late 1980s.

 

myfonts.com

 

FONTS IN USE provides a link to the official (paid for) version of the typeface at MYFONTS. The uncredited artwork design (above) is by freelance graphic designer Michael Sallit. There is a free version on FONTSGEEK, which I downloaded. 

 

HawthornEF Regular

 

I think this digital version—shown above in Word (screenshot) sans outline—renders pretty accurately. There are no obvious differences between this version and the original used by GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN (GA&U) in 1977.

 

First edition dustjacket (cropped and colour modified)

 

Reading Coles' The Geometry of Type, Hawthorn most readily fits, I think, into his ‘Transitional Serif’ classification; perhaps with a hint—particularly that E—of ‘Inscribed/Engraved’. Hawthorn is slightly calligraphic and has condensed (narrow) letterforms; it has short, sharp triangular (bracketed) serifs; the stroke contrast is moderate; stress angle is variable, but mostly upright (vertical); x-height is quite large; it also features bulbous terminals (a and r) and large dots (i). The kerning is noticeably cramped in places e.g. between the E and N in TOLKIEN.

 

Also on SILMARILLION MINUTIAE

❆ Officina Bodoni: a Note on Hans Mardersteig