
The origins of Souvenir are to be found in the 1905 German Art Nouveau series from Schelter & Giesecke named after its parent foundry Schelter Antiqua’, or Schelter Roman’. Morris Fuller Benton took the rounded half of the characters (gsvwy) almost without change, wholly redesigning the remainder, some of which have a chiseled appearance in the original. Souvenir was released as a single weight in 1914 by ATF. In the late nineteen sixties Aaron Burns foresaw the need for this kind of face, and in a brilliant marketing move made it the second ITC release. The present ITC series, licensed from ATF, was skillfully expanded from this original by Ed Benguiat. Since its release in 1970, Souvenir has become one of the world’s most popular designs, setting a fashion for round-edged text faces of soft texture.