Voysey’s lettering designs

The great German typeface designer Hermann Zapf wrote that: “Typography is two-dimensional architecture, based on experience and imagination…” As one of the leading architects of his day, it seems entirely fitting that C F A Voysey should have also excelled in that discipline. In his time, his graphic work was highly regarded, widely disseminated and very influential. Of all his architect contemporaries, only C R Mackintosh produced lettering designs that remain so instantly recognisable and inextricably linked to their creator. This paper is the first survey of this aspect of Voysey’s work, taking a methodical, analytical approach to the subtle developments and changes in Voysey’s lettering designs over his long career and in so doing, creating a valuable, detailed and accurate stylistic timeline by which future Voysey scholars can more accurately assign the likely year of execution to undated architectural drawings and designs. Motivating factors behind the major shift in Voysey’s lettering designs of around 1907-08 are explored and addressed. The paper also establishes a bibliography of all Voysey’s known book cover designs and clarifies the actual dates of execution of many of the undated designs/omissions contained in the only book devoted to Voysey’s graphic work: The Bookplates and Badges of C.F.A Voysey, Karen Livingstone (2010). The late Stuart Durant, Reader at Kingston University and a renowned expert on decoration and ornament cited this paper in his book The Decorative Designs of C F A Voysey, Lutterworth (2017), describing it as “particularly important”.