The Other Great Wall of China

The hand of Niels Shoe Meulman of Calligraffiti has left his "ununcompromising" China ink mark on a brick wall in Beijing, China recently. The repeat pattern of the four calligraphic strokes of the "un" letterforms create a visual texture that is undeniably striking. Shoe states that these thick brush strokes symbolize the power of reversal and they draw attention to themselves equally as much as the space between the strokes. The ink is to the absence of the ink just as a positive is to a negative, black is to white, or yin to yang in this case. Shoe is every much a believer in these dualities as he is in the beauty of the letterforms themselves.
      We live in a world of opposites and Shoe admits, "we can't truly be comfortable unless we were uncomfortable before. To be alive is only to be undead." Furthering this notion, he adds, "when science proudly presents its universal laws, some of us know that they are ununiversal. If you don't understand this, ununderstand."
      Say what you like (or unlike), but I think his work is unbeatable.
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Post postscript: It just dawned on me, today is 11.11.11 and this work of Shoe's with all of the vertical calligraphic strokes is the perfect calligraphic metaphor for this date. It's a great day for wearing stripes!

Lettering For The Trades

Lovely lettering sample book published in Rotterdam in 1900 for signpainters, stonecutters, lithographers and architects. Kindly shared on Piet Schreuder's Flickrstream.   

Tricycle Calligraphy

Just because you can. Well...some people can. 
But what is he writing?
::Thanks Peacay!

The Universal Penman

This fun lettering sampler from Argentina was recently sent to me by an alert reader from Uruguay. The title in English translates to The Method of Calligraphy in Schools. It was originally published in the Caras y Caretas magazine in Buenos Aires in 1917. The string of sentences following each illustration and calligraphic text reads:

1. "Primero se enseñaba la letra inglesa, por su ligereza y por estar dentro de nuestras aficciones hípicas." (Roughly translated in English as: First taught was the English lettering, for its lightness and being within our horse racing hobbies.)

2. "Luego adoptamos la redondilla francesa, por ser la madre de la libertad de escribir como uno quiera." (Roughly translated to: Then we adopted the French quatrain, as for being the mother of the freedom to write as you want.)

3. "Despues aprendimos la Iturzaeta española, por tradición y la solemne majestad de su marcha sobre la pauta." (Roughly translated to: Then we learned the Spanish Iturzaeta, by tradition and for the solemn majesty of its march over the pattern.)

4. "Tambien impusimos el estilo gótico decorativo, que es muy bueno para distracción de los niños en horas de recreo." (Roughly translated to: We also imposed the decorative Gothic style, which is very good for distraction of children in their leisure hours.) 

5. "Por último, enseñamos la vertical yankee, por ser lo más adelantado y por su parecido a las estacadas y alambrados de nuestros campos. (Roughly translated to: Finally, we taught the vertical Yankee for being upfront and for its resemblance to the stakes and fences of our fields.)

6. "Y de todas estas letras, combinadas en agradable confraternidad, crearemos nuestro elegante método de escritura nacional." (Roughly translated to: And all these letters, combined into friendly fellowship, we will create our national elegant method of writing.)

I love this perspective! It takes a global village and the art of lettering is a universal practice. Thank you for sharing Horacio!

Calligraffiti Deck Chairs

I didn't realize there was such a strong parallel between letters and deck chairs, but this makes the 2nd time in a week I've posted on this duo—this one involves lettering performance art at the Unruly Gallery by Dutch artist Niels "Shoe" Meulman. In a moving performance, Shoe designs the covers of ten deck chairs to benefit Pluk de Nacht, the 2011 Open Air Film Festival in Amsterdam which continues daily until August 13th. Watching this short of Shoe's work is the next best thing to actually being at the film festival.

Artful Lettering

Using Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black fountain pen ink and a Soennecken 70# writing pad, we see graphic designer/calligrapher Frank Ortmann skillfully render some fine-looking letters for the cover artwork of Max Goldt, L'Eglise des Crocodiles in 2011. First we look over his shoulder to see him pencil in some slanted guidelines for the letterforms with the use of a simple handmade guide. After he carefully pencils in each letter of his layout, he selects an antique extra fine pen nib used for copperplate writing and inks in his letters while applying various degrees of pressure to control the thickness of each stroke. Lastly he scans the image and does the final edit in Photoshop to create the lovely work of lettering seen on the album cover. The music by the Zonnhaider's Club isn't bad either.
       You can read a nice interview of Ortmann talking about his work over at Calligraphy. And if you are really interested to learn more about calligraphy of all kinds, be sure to drop in to iampeth where you can find endless examples of rare penmanship books to peruse. It is a gold mine of hand lettering riches.

An Italic Hand

A 1540 monograph of Gerardus Mercator on the lettering of maps in 16th C Netherlands and his treatise on the italic hand. One of only 3 known copies in existence. From the Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Mercator (1512-1594), a Flemish mapmaker is best known for the Mercator projection world map named after him. You can view enlarged images of each page spread here.