Jane Austen’s House

Handwritten letter

Jane Austen’s House in Chawton, Hampshire, United Kingdom is the house where Jane Austen — an English novelist known for her six major novels including Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), and Emma (1816)— lived and wrote.

Designed by Pentagram London

The new mark was inspired by the hand-drawn character ‘A’ which appears in a letter written by Austen to her niece Anna in 1815. The design team created an elegant, stylised monogram combining the letters ‘J’ and ‘A’, which gives the identity a modern, but decorative feel.
Pentagram project page

The identity uses two typefaces, Caslons Egyptian for the headlines and Caslon Doric for body copy. Caslons Egyptian is an updated version of ‘Two Lines English Egyptian’, the first commercially available sans-serif typeface which was released in 1816, a year before Austen’s death. Caslon Doric is Commercial Type’s modern take on the classic sans serif, and shares the same historical references as the headline font.
Pentagram project page

I DO like the behind the scene of this identity — the handwritten character by the novelist— not just because of its simplicity and meaning but I think it’s an appropriate approach for an identity of a novelist — person who writes.

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