Published by the English foundry Stephenson, Blake & Co. in 1905, the typeface Windsor is a titling font designed to meet the developing needs of 20th-century advertising. The eccentric shape of certain letters (a, n, h, o, p) gives it an exceptional personality. It is not clear who authored the typeface, with some attributing Windsor to Eleisha Pechey, while others believe it is the result of an anonymous group of collaborators in the design office of the English foundry.¹
Windsor, Bitstream.
Windsor has a floral design, with forms that reference the natural elements present in Art Nouveau, a movement that was in vogue at the time of its creation. Its rounded serifs and terminals follow this logic of curves.
Left: Parisian subway Entrance by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, originally posted to Flickr as La station art nouveau de la porte Dauphine (Hector Guimard), CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23492700 Right: Windsor, Bitstream.
Since its digital revival, Windsor has been used on t-shirts, restaurant facades, it has been plastered on walls, trash cans, logos of home-care companies, clothing brands, and has even featured in the end credits of numerous Woody Allen films. A popular typeface, it was elected 2021’s Favorite Font by GQ and was described by Stephen Coles, editorial director of the San Francisco Letterform Archive, as the “corduroy of fonts.”²
Windsor also brought a touch of elegance to the cover of the Whole Earth Catalog, the iconic American counter-cultural magazine published by Stewart Brand from 1968 to 1972.
