Magdalene Regular: a new font for The New Library

by Dr Marcus Waithe (2010), Fellow and College Librarian

An Honorary Fellow of the College, Mrs Lida Lopes Cardozo Kindersley MBE (2015), is the country’s foremost letter cutter, as well as a calligrapher and type designer. Her workshop on Cambridge’s Victoria Road has cut inscriptions for some of the UK’s most prestigious institutions, including the British Library, the Wellcome Collection, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art, and the John Rylands Library. Most recently, Lida and her apprentices have been commissioned to cut the Stone of Principal Benefactors for our New Library building, and they are fitting donor recognition signs in a specially designed typeface known as ‘Magdalene Regular’.

Painting The Stone of Principal Benefactors.