Loretta’s New Orleans

Contributed by Florian Hardwig on Nov 4th, 2019.

Loretta’s Authentic Pralines has been in business for over 35 years. Loretta was the first African American woman to successfully own and operate her own praline company in New Orleans.

The hanging sign shown above features a wordmark in Motter Femina, with a custom swash initial. It is complemented by caps from ITC Souvenir. The small type on the parade banner is Comic Sans. Inside the shop, there’s a fantastic neon version of the logo, with Femina glowing in outline. Date and designer are unknown.

Loretta’s New Orleans 2 — **Source: www.vianolavie.org** Katie Burke. License: All Rights Reserved.

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1 Comment on “Loretta’s New Orleans”

Florian Hardwig says:
Nov 4th, 2019 1:13 pm

Letragraphica sheets with Motter Femina in 72pt (Letraset, 1980). Photos by mattie_222 and buy-by-web (edited).

Letraset’s version of Motter Femina included alternates for r and t. On p67 of his Motter biography (Triest Verlag, 2019), Elias Riedmann shows a photo of the drawing for the wider form for r, with a handwritten note signed “O. Motter 91”. It reads (my translation):

Attention! This second r was later added by Letraset and should be digitized, too. If only one r is possible, this form should be preferred.

URW’s digitization of Motter Femina (1994, discontinued) has only one form for r (and t), and indeed it’s the wider form as specified by the designer. When Motter Fonts produced their official digital version (released in 2008), this expressed preference apparently had fallen into oblivion. The font exclusively includes the other, narrower glyphs for these two characters.

Top: Digitization by URW. Bottom: Digitization by Motter Fonts.