The outlines were redrawn manually because there were no drawn outlines as such in existence. It is a new creative work, in that it's my interpretation of the Doves type which only ever existed in metal. It was never redrawn for filmsetting or digital by its original creators because they disposed of it before these technologies came into existence. So the final typeface was never drawn as such, as would have been necessary for adapting it (as so many other types have been) for new reproduction techniques.

The original drawings for the type, by Percy Tiffin, are more like sketches or visuals – guidelines to give the punchcutter a direction rather than precise instructions. They bear little relation to the end product, so they are not the typeface in & of themselves. (I initially tried to use these as reference & after a couple of hours realised that they were pretty useless, containing no uniform measures, proportions or elements). The final 'outlines' for the type were created in the metal itself by the punchcutter, Edward Prince. He is responsible for drawing, or rather carving the form of the type straight onto the steel punches from which the final type moulds (matrices) were cast.

The name Doves Type® is copyrighted to protect my drawings. But if someone wants to go ahead and do what I did and recreate the type from the original printed sources there's nothing to stop them, as long as they do not use my font data as a basis for their font. It took me 5 years, on-&-off, to reach the stage where I was satisfied that I had captured the overall essence of the original. Though one can never recreate the patina of a letterpress type – the appearance of each glyph varies from word to word, line to line, page to page. That's why I prefer to call my digital type a facsimile.