Tiro Typeworks – Typefounding at Rossville, 1840
Melting Equipment (urn & pourer). Small amounts of lead are melted in the pouring device, which when tipped releases the molten lead through a spout.
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While I was doing typeface and alphabet research for a current project involving Inuit (Inuktitut) language, I came across the type foundry and project studio Tiro Typeworks.
Since 1994, Tiro Typeworks has established a reputation for both design and technical quality in digital font production. From beginnings as an independent retail type foundry, the company, which still consists of founders John Hudson and Ross Mills, has developed into a highly regarded developer of custom typefaces and font solutions for major software developers, academic organisations and publishers, and government. Since 1997, Tiro Typeworks has specialised in fonts for multilingual computing and publishing, making fonts for a variety of scripts and writing systems. This work includes extensions to existing Latin typefaces (for instance, new Cyrillic, Greek and Hebrew companions for Helvetica Linotype), original single and multi-script typefaces designed by Hudson and Mills, and collaborations with Tiro’s associate designers.
I found on their website a project examinating of some of the processes that James Evans may have used to cast type at the Rossville Mission.
See the complete experiment here
Finished mould
James Evans, Rossville, 1840
28 September, 1840
‘For a fortnight I have been endeavouring to cast type, to print the Cree language; but every attempt hitherto made has failed. I have no proper materials, neither type-metal, nor any other thing requisite:I hope, however, to conquer the difficulties and begin printing the Cree language in a few weeks or months at the farthest’30 September, 1840
‘I cut types in lead of two characters, and took moulds in clay, chalk, putty, sand, and tried some other fruitless experiments.’
Initial casting; here unfinished as pulled from the mould
