Larkspur Type | Fall 2023 | 10 weeks | Individual
Type Design + Production
Glyphs
A first foray into type systems.
Larkspur was inspired by the Golden Type (1890) of the Kelmscott Press, which itself was a revival of Nicholas Jenson’s 15th-century type. This serif typeface features a full glyph set, standard ligatures, alternate character sets, and floral dingbats drawn from the Press’s published works. Larkspur gains a modern flair with the addition of inktraps.
Larkspur, a pattern by William Morris & Co.
The typeface’s name comes from the Larkspur plant and one of Morris & Co.’s best-selling wallpapers of the same name. The Risograph type specimen poster showcases both the plant itself and the wallpaper. This revival is modernized with inktraps and stylistic alternates, such as the single-looped a and g. Also included are full punctuation sets, old-style and tabular numbers, and two floral ligatures reminiscent of those found in the original press printings.
The man behind the Kelmscott Press
William Morris was a major figure in the 19th-century Arts and Crafts movement. He was an artist, writer, textile designer, and, toward the end of his life, a type designer, having founded the Kelmscott Press with Emery Walker. The name Kelmscott was taken from Morris’s manor. The Golden Type, pictured above, was among the typefaces produced at the press; others included the Troy and Chaucer types. I was able to access a specimen of the Golden Type—thanks to the Hunt Library Archives and Kelsey Elder—and obtain high-quality scans to inform my drawing and typesetting.
© Amber Li | Last updated Feb 2025Back to top ↑