Messages

16

Everyday Handwriting | Penmanship / Re: If "Reading is Fundamental"...

« on: July 27, 2017, 05:20:09 PM »

At the SF Pen Show a few years ago, I saw Michael Sull give a talk about the history of handwriting in the US.  It was pretty fascinating because he also spoke of his own experience in studying penmanship and the whole thing took on a vaguely patriotic tone when he talked about the development of Spencerian script.  Anyway, he discussed how people didn't necessarily learn how to write when they learned how to read and that learning to write and having beautiful penmanship became a way of advancing within society because it allowed you to be able to apply and be selected for better paying jobs.  It became a selling point for the schools of penmanship.  In the context of Mr. Sull's talk, it became tied in with the idea of the American dream, that you didn't have to accept whatever position you were born into in society, that you could work hard and do better than your parents ever did and that learning perfect penmanship was one way to do that.  I suppose it's a bit like the idea of going to college when your parents only had high school diplomas or going to med school when your parents only graduated college.

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Everyday Handwriting | Penmanship / Re: Library Hand

« on: July 27, 2017, 04:58:37 PM »

Fascinating! Especially since my original goal was to become a research librarian. Interesting choice for their lower case g given the simplicity of the rest of the style. 

My ex-boyfriend used the same g, which is why I wondered if he was somehow taught this method of writing (his "a," however, was a simple circle and post, more like the joined up version).  Interestingly, he worked in the special collections section of his university library while in college but his writing style pre-dated that experience.

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Everyday Handwriting | Penmanship / Re: If "Reading is Fundamental"...

« on: July 27, 2017, 12:20:32 PM »

Writing might be on the decline, but the great thing is that it is continues to be an advantageous skill to have, especially in the work place. A well-written thank you note still makes a lasting impression and trumps email any day

The handwritten thank you note is making a huge comeback in business.  During this past year, I worked for a short time at a stationery store.  I can't tell you how many times that, as soon as the door opened in the morning, a man in a business suit came in looking lost, but determined, on a mission to buy thank you cards or blank cards that could be used as thank you cards.  They said that email, while quick, didn't stand out and if you wanted to make sure you made an impression, you needed to do something a little different and handwritten thank you notes fit the bill.  Direct marketing campaign people are also sending handwritten missives to high value potential clients.  I suspect that this trend will continue and grow larger as digital communication continues to grow and dominate everyday lives.  Therefore, being able to write clearly (both in terms of comprehension and legibility) is going to be a valuable networking skill in the future.  I dislike the idea of education being solely for the purpose of being useful in your future career, but since that is the only argument some people will accept, I think you could reasonably make the argument that having children learn and practice good handwriting will serve them well in their future careers.

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Everyday Handwriting | Penmanship / Re: Library Hand

« on: July 27, 2017, 11:57:00 AM »

“The handwriting of the old-fashioned writing master is quite as illegible as that of the most illiterate boor,” read a New York State Library School handbook.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/library-hand-penmanship-handwriting

Ohh, snap!  What a harsh assessment!

I love these historical posts that you do @AAAndrew, they are always fascinating.  What I love most about this story is that it's a clear example of writing being first and foremost a way to communicate and if it's not doing that job (as in the case with these library card catalog cards), then it clearly needs to be modified so that it can serve its purpose.  I love seeing the beautiful works of art that calligraphers make, but for me, the art of making letters will always be most fulfilling as a means of communication.

The disjoined hand looks very much like the writing of my then boyfriend way back in late high school, early college (it was the dark ages before free email and we didn't go to college in the same city and long distance phone calls were expensive, so we wrote a lot of letters).  So much so that I'm tempted to send him a message via facebook and ask how he settled on his particular style.  He never wrote cursive (joined-up lettering) because he said his version was illegible (I just recalled he was left-handed and I think he felt that contributed to having miserable looking cursive).  The capital letters/majiscules also remind me of the alphabet we were required to use during our drafting unit in shop class in jr. high.

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Copperplate, Engrosser's Script, Roundhand Calligraphy / Re: Copperplate vs Engraver's penlifts on baseline.

« on: July 26, 2017, 11:52:11 PM »

I'm glad people are sharing some of the historical background with these scripts regarding pen lifts.  This is something that has always bothered me about traditional pointed pen scripts. I can see that, in the present day, these scripts are used as calligraphy and therefore people do what they can to make them as beautiful/perfect as possible which may lead to lifting the pen.  But, if you are going to develop a style of script to be used for everyday purposes--writing letters, receipts, invoices, bank drafts, etc., the idea that you would create something that had both connections between the letters (in theory to speed up the writing) and lifts in between each letter seems contradictory.   

Regarding quills and metal nibs and squared vs pointed, Mitchell make broad-edged nibs that are called Roundhand nibs.  I use them for Italic and they are pretty flexible compared to other brands of broad-edged nibs (ie Brause or Tape).  I've often wondered if their name was an indication they were once used for roundhand writing.  This manual for German Roundhand (Die Rundschrift) shows a blunt edge pen used at a 45 degree angle.

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Penmanship, Cursive, and Letter Writing in the News

« on: July 26, 2017, 07:18:41 PM »

Another article listing the now-familiar arguments for cursive:

Keyboards are overrated. Cursive is back and it’s making us smarter.

I like the last paragraph.

One reason I like Montessori education is the maxim that we learn best through the work of our hands.  For this reason, in many Montessori teacher training programs, you are only allowed to take handwritten notes.  What the article says about trying to capture a word for word transcription of a lecture or seminar rather than taking notes, is familiar to me after reading about and learning Sketchnoting (related TED talk about doodling here, that is, the idea that you retain more if you synthesize what you hear in some way rather than copy it down verbatim.  That's certainly true in my own experience, and I've heard other people say the same thing. 

Slightly related:  The author of that article says that they made the same exact motion for each letter when typing the word "typing".  If that is true, she was not using a touch-typing method since the finger movements would have been different for each letter (except for i, of course, since it appears twice).  Another dying art.  I took a year of typing in high school and by every single measure it was the most useful class I took in high school and worth every second and more.

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Compendium of Lettering Styles

« on: July 26, 2017, 06:54:53 PM »

BARDOLINO

A few years ago, I designed this lettering style. as entirely my own work. 

As everything has to have a name, I called it "Bardolino" after our favourite holiday destination in Italy. As the letters have built-in ligatures as part of the design, the minuscules butt together eliminating any need for careful inter-letter spacing.

If anyone wants to try this style for themselves, I would appreciate acknowledgement of its origin.

It's lovely, Ken.  I'm really enamored of the last down stroke on the miniscule h, m, and n.  I was going to ask what the specs were if someone wanted to try their hand at it, and then I thought, "Where's the fun in that?"  So, after printing it out and messing with a ruler and protractor and a few nibs, I came up with:

x= 5 nib widths
ascender/descender= 2.5 x
caps= 2x
slant= 15 degrees from perpendicular
pen angle= 50 degrees from baseline

Is that an accurate assessment?

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Letter Pixels / Re: Photoshop Elements - changing the colour of my script...

« on: July 26, 2017, 02:55:57 PM »

When I've played around with this in the past, I have always made my lettering its own layer with a transparent background within that layer.  First, I write it on white paper, then scan it, then in Elements, I use the magic wand to select the white background and delete it.  I've always used magic wand on the lettering itself, and then made a new layer and used the fill tool to fill in the highlighted area in order to change the color, but, Erica's way is much easier!  A whole new world has been opened to me!

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Letter Pixels / Re: Photoshop Elements - changing the colour of my script...

« on: July 26, 2017, 09:14:48 AM »

There are probably better ways to do this, but.....

In Elements, click on the layer containing your script.  Then, on the top menu bar click Filter.  Under that, click Adjustments.  Under that, click Invert.  It should switch from black to white.

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Italic Exemplar Favorites

« on: July 25, 2017, 09:19:03 PM »

Thank you, for the Tom Gourdie style exemplar @Ken Fraser.  I was considering getting his book (used, since it is out of print), but I think my husband may quietly go insane if I buy yet another book on Italic. 

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Artificial Intelligence Quote Generator

« on: July 25, 2017, 09:08:41 PM »

These are HILARIOUS 

I couldn't help but try one myself, and I got this:

"Make cash. Play real. Hate cake."

The recipe for success for...somebody. I love cake.

Hmmmm....hating cake would definitely put you at a disadvantage in a Cake or Death situation.

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Contemporary and Modern Calligraphy / Re: Bounce Scripts- Help!

« on: July 25, 2017, 12:07:12 PM »

@Elizgadus59 I once had someone ask me if I could write out a few place cards.  She showed me a photo of something that she liked, a modern pointed pen calligraphy style.  Not having done such a script before, and not sure if I could pull it off, I asked her what she liked about the example, was it the bounce was it the shape of the letters, the flourishing?  It turned out that what she really liked were the long, trailing flourishes on things like the cross-bar for the t or at the end of the word.  In fact, she wasn't all that interested in the bounciness of it.

With that in mind, and assuming you haven't just spent months perfecting a bouncing script, perhaps you could ask some of the brides what they like about the modern calligraphy styles and take one or two elements that you don't mind too much and adding them to your more traditional styles?  I know that, in business, you sometimes have to cater to the client's wishes even if it strongly goes against your personal tastes.  However, if brides are really all over the modern calligraphy and are going to want it a lot, I hate to think of you spending a lot of your time addressing envelopes and writing place cards in a style you really hate. 

I also wonder if the appeal for modern calligraphy is that it tends to look more casual and therefore more like real handwriting.  I wonder if the reason that traditional calligraphy is less appealing is because there are so many font styles out there that reproduce traditional calligraphic styles and brides specifically want something that looks hand done and not printed?

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Italic Exemplar Favorites

« on: July 25, 2017, 11:28:27 AM »

The first Italic example which really grabbed my attention was a letter by Bartholomew Dodington, part of which is reproduced here.  I definitely prefer the renaissance style to modern exemplars, and find Arrighi particularly pleasing.

I like the renaissance styles as well, but I tend to find the traditional contemporary styles call to me more when I think about mastering a particular style.

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Italic Exemplar Favorites

« on: July 25, 2017, 11:16:20 AM »

I split this off into its own topic. John Steven's Italic is my personal favorite. Ken, your italic (like all of your Lettering Styles) is so beautiful! 

So, first, did you know that there's a professional hockey coach named John Stevens?  Thank you google for enlightening me.  John Stevens the calligrapher can be found here if people are interested.     Having briefly perused his site, I can see why his style appeals to you, @Erica McPhee.  Some of the examples remind me a bit of modern pointed pen calligraphy (I hope I don't offend anyone by saying that).

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Italic Exemplar Favorites

« on: July 24, 2017, 10:33:46 AM »

Thanks for making this its own topic, @Erica McPhee.  I don't want to derail Ken's Compendium with a long discussion on Italic.  Which will hopefully not become fodder for the Calligraphy Bar Brawls topic.