In the shadow of the English industrial revolution, new printing machines brought mass production to the print industry. The goal, of course, was to constantly produce new and unusual products to sell to more and more consumers. Many of the typefaces created in this time were meant simply to catch attention and to advertise products. Along with the related font designs Zebrawood™, Pepperwood® and Ponderosa™, the Rosewood design was created by the trio K.B. Chansler, Carl Crossgrove and Carol Twombly, and has its roots in the slab serif style popular in middle and western America in the latter half of the 18th century. The initial weights of the Rosewood design are true to the simplicity typical of display typefaces favored during this period. Subsequent weights were designed as playful variations on this theme.

References:
Western Fonts

The two ornamental weights of Rosewood reflect this playfulness and never fail to put readers in a "western" state of mind. The Rosewood design is a bicolor font, meaning that the “fill” weight of Rosewood can be used as a decoration for the inner spaces of Rosewood regular.