Art in Action - Tom Perkins

We saw Gaynor in action yesterday - she had teamed up with her husband Tom Perkins at Art in Action this year and he had a stand next door. They are real heavyweights in the lettering world and if you have not seen Tom's book, even if you won't ever do carving, its a real treat just for the letterforms.

Anyway, Tom showed a piece he was working on and if you look next to it, you'll see a beautiful d and an a on the display board. His style is particularly recognisable for his own style of letters, like the pointed d & a and the wide shouldered O.

My son (the one who wasn't knighted) had a lovely weekend on one of Tom's workshops in Wales to do carving as an experience, for the day when he has free time. He went back to Sweden with a great big chunk of stone in his luggage and was thrilled with the course. But, so far, with two little girls and his dinosaur apps, he's had no free time! 

If you didn't look at Gaynor's website yesterday, look it up today as they share a website.

www.gaynorgoffe-calligraphy.co.uk

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A bit more about Drawn letters

Working with an edged pen may not suit everyone who wants to create letterforms, but it certainly explains the historical formation of letter weight. It is assumed that most Roman Inscriptions in the first century began life as brush lettering (hence the serif?). It is for this reason that it is worth studying Foundational and Italic, but at the same time, students would want to begin drawing and copying letters by hand.


Capitals letters have many peculiarities not shared by minuscules.
i) Easy reading: A line of Capital letters is far more difficult to read fluently.
ii) Rhythms: These letters developed as individual letters, not as a cursive script, so without the natural flow, there are many subtleties to make them "hang well" together.
iii) Widths: If, say, the L was as wide as an O, there would be a huge gap in the middle of a word. So this is sorted out by narrowing the L and pushing the adjacent letter closer to it.
iv) Weights and pen angle: If the same pen angle was used throughout, N would be a very heavy dense letter and Z would be super-light in comparison to other letters. 
v) Flow: By making horizontals lighter in weight, the E is more comfortable and the B will fit into the same height much better.
vi) Consistency - Horizontal bars are usually in the same position in Trajan Caps -i.e. resting on the halfway line; but in the A it is dropped to make it visually balanced.
vii) It is a common mistake for beginners to make capital letters the same height as ascenders. they are shorter (unless the ascenders are stunted)
viii) And then there is the weight: If lettering is to be reduced for reproduction, the letter weight (X height) and serifs need to be chunkier. 
Once one understands these and many more nuances, one is better equipped to design a cohesive alphabet.
I remember Freda Sack of Foundry Types saying (in her own words) : "The aim in designing an alphabet is so that no particular letter jumps out and disturbs the overall harmony"
and in my own words - "unless on purpose", as Burgert did)

"t" reproduced with permission from Tom Perkins

Tom Perkins: detail of a final drawing for a letter carving

I'm not at all the expert here, but it seems to me that the triumvirate classical training of Foundational, Trajan and Italic can only be good. After that, I'd leave it to Tom Perkins and other teachers of his ilk to "design a drawn letters course"

And one more thing: You know Ben Shahn (one of my dearly beloveds) used all those funny naive scripts with odd N's and "painfully copied" decorative versals? Well, he began by learning drawn letters and could also draw the most immaculate Trajan O with consummate ease! So there!

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Family Tree of Skills

UNCIALS

penmanship 

good circles - letter o

basics of calligraphy

introduction to layout

introduction to fine detail painting

introduction to continuous writing

GOTHIC MINUSCULES

practice in verticals

inter-letter spacing

rhythm

exploring pattern and texture


introduction to relaxed penmanship (birds)

introduction to continuous writing

MONOLINE TRAJAN CAPS

foundation for Roman capitals in Foundational

understanding of capitals in Italic

appreciation of capitals in design

understanding of spacing and rhythm in lettering

understanding and critical approach to well designed typography

experience of drawn lettering

starting point to letter design 


Now its time to choose a direction for a while. 
You can always go back or change direction. The principle behind this idea is so that you don't go off at a tangent before consolidating one style like suddenly deciding to do Copperplate before mastering any script and at the end of a long time you have not really progressed in any direction.


Look at lots of calligraphy and decide what really appeals to you and what you think is within your ability.
What appeals to you the most? Look at the best calligraphy work to help you decide.
Tim Noad's beautiful Heraldry or Monica Dengo's expressive work. 
Consider Tom Perkin's or Hazel Dolby's drawn letters.

Tim Noad - reproduced with permission

Monica Dengo - reproduced with permission

Look at the St John Bible designed by Donald Jackson and Brody Neuenschwander's work. 
Look at the annual juried issue of Letter Arts Review.
Try to fit the work you see and like into one of the three categories below.
(I'm on dangerous ground here with all this labelling, but I really believe that its worth getting some strong foundations in a specific direction rather than becoming a workshop junkie going mindlessly from copperplate to rubber stamping to Brush Capitals and back. Once you have produced a really good portfolio in either Italic or Foundational, 
go on...indulge yourself in some experimentation and fun-stuff.)


FORMAL

This may lead to formal certificates, name tags, citations

Foundational

and 

Fine Detail or Heraldic Painting

later consider

Copperplate

Formal Italic

DRAWN LETTERS
This may lead to Typographic design, letter carving, drawn and painted letters
Foundational
with 
equal emphasis on capital letters & minuscules
and 
drawn letters
later consider
Formal brush lettering
computer skills:
Fontographer


GESTURAL 

This may lead to expressive work as in modern calligraphic works

It is also the most versatile hand for general calligraphy

and less formal work.

book covers

advertising

Italic (formal and informal)

and

art-design courses

later consider

brush lettering

computer skills:

 Indesign

I hope this helps! xxx At least it might help you evaluate differently.
The views expressed here are entirely my humble opinion* and I would welcome comments and debates. 
*b.t.w., one of my daughters once told me that my opinion is never humble.

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