I released Densmore on March 25, 1998, inspired by the geometric logo of The Doors. The name comes from John Densmore, the band’s drummer, and the design traces back to early twentieth-century stencil-style Art Deco lettering. The original version was unusual in that it did not include capital letters; instead, typing in uppercase produced outlined versions of the lowercase forms. The typeface also carried over a distinctive detail from the Doors logo: each O had a line cut through it, slanting in a different direction. I replicated that with an OpenType rule so that when two O’s appeared consecutively, the slants alternated automatically.

On February 2, 2011, I revised the family. That update added a proper set of capitals and introduced two companion styles, Densmore Pink and Densmore Blue, intended for layering and offsetting in color. I also included an alternate lowercase-style T for use in OpenType-savvy applications.

A further update on June 25, 2021, removed deprecated characters, expanded the fractions feature, and adjusted vertical metrics for better browser compatibility. Densmore was always intended as a general-purpose geometric Art Deco display typeface rather than a Doors tribute. It has been used on the cover of John Densmore: The Seekers: Meetings with Remarkable Musicians but otherwise remains a relatively modest entry in my catalog.