Flourished and intertwined "CB"

[AAAndrew]

I'm kind of in an awkward situation. My wife is the artistic director of a brand new non-profit ballet company. They're trying to develop a logo and are working with a graphic designer.

At the same time, she's asked if I can come up with a monogram-like conglomeration of the four letters of the company. WFCB (Wake Forest Civic Ballet), in a copperplate, engrossers - like script. There's no money to hire a real calligrapher (even the graphic designer is doing it for cost as a friend of the owners) so it's come down to me.

Now, flourishing is not really in my "wheelhouse" as they say, but I'm giving it a try. I think I've got a passable "WF", but I'm stymied on how to connect the "CB" in any way that looks half-way decent. I was wondering if you master geniuses could give me an idea or two of how best to connect them. A pencil sketch or even a description would be helpful. Anything.

Right now it's laid out like this.
WF
CB

That's challenging enough to see each line as separate, I'm really stumped on how to do it all horizontally so I'm not even going there: WFCB.

I'm hesitant to ask because I'm vehemently opposed to asking any artist or crafts person to do work for free. I respect the hard work and talent that goes into becoming what you are too much. That's not what I'm looking for.  But, at the same time, I'm stuck for a successful solution to this problem. So, any indication or pointing me in a direction would be so very helpful. Thanks so much.

Andrew

[Tarara]

Hello Andrew!

If I understand right you need idea to connect C and B. Sorry, I'm not familiar with engrosser's capital letters, but if this picture will give you any idea or inspiration how to combine these letters in monogram, I'll be glad

Sorry if i understand it in wrong way.
Maybe it will be easier to help, if you can show what you already did with WF.

[AnasaziWrites]

So, any indication or pointing me in a direction would be so very helpful. Thanks so much.

Andrew

@AAAndrew
Perhaps here's an idea.
You might use these, either vertically as you are working on, or concatinated in any number of ways.
(From Knights New Book of Seven Hundred and Fifty Eight Plain Ornamented & Reversed Cyphers (1832).

[AAAndrew]

Wow! Those are amazing! And very helpful. Thanks!

[jeanwilson]

I would suggest using a style that is upright or with only a tiny bit of slant. While you do see logos that are very slanted, I think you see a lot more that are not. I've been looking for years - for a really great logo with a lot of slant - and have yet to find one.

I don't have time to search for a lot of links - but Raphael Boguslav's website has quite a few examples of good logo design.
Under Work, click on logos and there are 4 pages of examples.
He also has one page of monograms.
Sadly, he passed away in 2010, but there is plenty of inspirational work on his site.

http://www.boguslav.com/

If you do a Google search in the images - for script logo - you will see many examples.
Note how few of them are upright or with only a slight slant.

Then do a search for -script monogram- which will send you to images and fonts that might be useful.

[JanisTX]

@AnasaziWrites : Beautiful & inspirational work!

@jeanwilson : thanks for being helpful, as always!

Janis

[AAAndrew]

Thanks, Jean, those are some great resources!

[Katie Leavens]

@AAAndrew for connected capital inspiration I always go to C. C. Canan for inspiration. He always made it look so effortless in his signature writing.

[AnasaziWrites]

for connected capital inspiration I always go to C. C. Canan for inspiration. He always made it look so effortless in his signature writing.

One of my favorites as well. So accomplished for one so young.

[jeanwilson]

Another thought on logo design.
Keep in mind that once you turn the design over to the client, they will need to enlarge and reduce it to fit everything from business cards to posters and maybe even billboards.
Any logo with very fine lines needs to be rendered in a variety of sizes because the fine lines at 6-inches, when reduced to 2-inches will probably start breaking up. And if the original was 4-6-inches and was then enlarged to poster size - it might not look very good.

The logo should be digitized to protect the resolution in enlarging and reducing. (I think digitized is the right word---I do not actually do any graphic work myself...I send it all out.)

You might want to enlarge and reduce any design that you are working on - before you submit it to the client
so that they don't fall in love with something that may look just fine at 4-inches - but has all kinds of issues at other sizes.
Check the Saks Fifth Avenue logo to see an example of a logo with some flourishing - but actually quite heavy if you compare it to anything done by hand.

[Elisabeth_M]

So, any indication or pointing me in a direction would be so very helpful. Thanks so much.

Andrew

@AAAndrew
Perhaps here's an idea.
You might use these, either vertically as you are working on, or concatinated in any number of ways.
(From Knights New Book of Seven Hundred and Fifty Eight Plain Ornamented & Reversed Cyphers (1832).

Extra points for using the word "concatinated" in a sentence.