Type West Online, Term 1, Spring 22
Josefa
Ana Michel
JOSEFA is a revival type design project based on the punches used to print the first Bolivian newspaper, EL CÓNDOR DE BOLIVIA, 1825 - 1828.
The source material was under the Scotch Roman category and it was an anglo variation on Modern/Didone type. After the last issue of EL CÓNDOR DE BOLIVIA was printed (1828), Printing started growing in many directions, like education, and other publications. Writers, historians and people involved in arts created the Bolivian Typographical Society. In that group there were two women, both named JOSEFA.
I dedicated an important amount of time to research, until I found information about the first Bolivian newspaper, EL CÓNDOR DE BOLIVIA. I got access to the complete facsimile with the 134 issues, and a doctoral history thesis “Typographers and the beginnings of printing in Bolivia” where I found valuable information for my project.
For the first drawings I used Glyphs collector and high-resolution scans. Since the source material had so many stains and undefined shapes, I worked with a lot of observation and comparison guided by similar references, according to the style and time period.
The main challenge was to reach consistency in terms of contrast, weight between Uppercase vs lowercase. Currently I am working on Josefa’s decorations, since the facsimile shows great material for dingbats.
Ana Michel
Ana Michel is a graphic designer and educator. Currently teaching at UPB Cochabamba, Bolivia, and working at her own design studio. Constant learner of type design, lettering, calligraphy, illustration techniques, and everything related to design and art in general.
