22 Jan 2014

Origin of Royal's Vogue


Advertisement for Vogue. Oddly, only the caption for Ira Tarbell is set in Kabel.

This is a sample from the 1939 Futurama brochure by General Motors that uses Kabel.

(EDIT) I just discovered (that word again) that there is also a non-typewriter typeface called Vogue which is definitely the one Royal based their Vogue off of (surprise?). No digital version exists. Anyway, both Vogues were definitely based off of Kabel. (Ira Tarbell's caption is still Kabel though, and the body text may or may not be in Vogue.)

Read more about Kabel on Wikipedia.

Sent from my Vogue Royal Model P

4 comments:

  1. Mmmm. I think you are heading on the right track. However, you need to have a closer look at 'Modern Pica block ra 280'. This is what the actual typeface was called, before it was given the more salable 'Vogue' name, and was manufactured by a firm in Berlin called 'Alfred Ransmayer & Albert Rodrian Vereinigte Typenfabriken'. It has appeared on At least two manufacturer's machines (Royal and Continental) and I suspect is likely to be found on others.

    It does have a lot in common with Kabel.

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  2. Excellent discovery, thank you.

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  3. I know that Intertype had a typeface named Vogue, but that one was derived from Futura, and lacks some of the distinctive features of Kabel that are found in Royal's Vogue typestyle for their typewriters.

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