Typophile

Plaque lettering from about 100 years ago - wish to find a matching font

eeblet

Hi all,

Long time, no typophile! It's good to be back.

Anyways, here's a photo of some lettering on a plaque -- I believe the date is around 1904, certainly no later than 1910. I'm hoping to find a font that's somewhat similar so that I don't have to spend a bunch of time tracing letters on a crappy photograph. The ones suggested by TypeNavigator and IdentiFont aren't really fitting the bill:

Alinea Incise -- to variable in letter weight, and the O isn't perfectly round
Linotype Aroma™ Regular -- The M is missing that lovely point, and the O isn't perfectly round
Avant Garde Demi -- has the right O, but not much else

The closest one I found is Futura medium or demi -- I could probably work with these and modify the width of some of the letters, as well as change around the E. However, I do love those gently opened Us.

Anyways, if anyone has any other ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Thanks,
Beth

AttachmentSize
usoleum-lettering.png156.02 KB
Hrant H Papazian

Hey Beth. If you only need to do "MAUSOLEUM" I think Futura is probably a sufficient basis. Even the "S" seems to match in terms of slight wobbliness.

Or wait, what about this:
http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/primetype/superla/
Released just 19 days ago! (Although apparently the original is from the GDR days.)

hhp

Michael Yanega

Superla from Primetype looks quite similar in shape, except that the crotch of the M is not pointed. It's unfortunate that your sample shows so few helpful letters from an ID point of view. For example, C, G, J and R would be a big help, in addition to the M and S in your sample.

I have to agree that Futura Demi seems a very good match for the letters you have shown.

- Mike Yanega

Michael Yanega

Spartan is a slightly different version of Futura, with a wider-looking E, which makes the U look narrower. The M crotch is flat, however.

- Mike Yanega

eeblet

"Usoleum" is the name of a usability blog/portfolio site I'm working on, hrant. Obviously I've plucked this from Mausoleum. :) I think modifying Futura will work just fine, and if I decide to use the above image in the header, I think Futura would work well for other title text on the site.

Thank you!

Captured from web.archive.org on 18 Oct 2013. view this capture