Alan Jacobs


#
Most type designers are understandably proud of their work. But Thomas Cobden-Sanderson, the maker of the beautiful Doves type, was so taken by it, and so keen that his former business partner shouldn’t use it after his death, that he resolved to drown every letter in the Thames. In 1916 he began loading up his bicycle under cover of darkness and throwing his font under Hammersmith bridge. He made more than 100 separate trips, a large undertaking for a man of 76. And much of it still remains in its watery grave, forming itself into such words as the tide dictates.