Evaluation

Being able to chose our own project was probably the best part of this project because you could either do something you knew you were good at or you could try something brand new that you've never tried before. Gaining new skills and experiences. For this project I decided to go with what I knew and did the project called Enchanting images. I have always loved fairy tale stories since a young age, making it really easy to connect with this project and use what I already knew about the stories and characters to create my own style.

To begin with it was hard to pick only one of the stories selected for us. I knew all of them really well which made it hard to chose between them. I narrowed my choices down by what has already been produced around the stories and whether I thought I could actually produce something that hasn't already been done. If its been done loads of times its really hard to lead away from that and create your own style. I ended up producing spider diagrams for both Snow White and Alice in Wonderland. After looking at what could be done with the stories I went with Alice in Wonderland because I know how bad I am with managing my time and thought that having to draw seven different dwarfs would be very time consuming, meaning my final drawings wouldn't have been to a high standard, they would have been rushed and I wouldn't have been happy with my results.

I had a few weaknesses throughout this project, even though I tried my hardest to organise my time efficiently, I ended up spending far too much time on the artist research because I kept finding new styles of work and examples of Alice in Wonderland that I liked, which kept lengthening my research time but making my time for actually creating my characters and final pieces very limited. This also meant that I wasn't able to experiment with the styles I had found either as much as I would have hoped. Another weakness was that for my final pieces I didn't get the Tea party drawing done, this was a disappointment because everyone recognises Alice in Wonderland with the Madhatter's Tea Party. I have seen a bright side of this disappointment though which is I haven't done the typical scene, but have still done some of the main ones that are still huge parts of the story.

I personally think my biggest strength in this project was actually my research. I found a lot of different styles of Alice in Wonderland so I knew what to avoid and what not to copy. Also I found different styles by artists that didn't look at Alice in Wonderland that I potentially thought could work with the story and I could possibly try if I had the time, unfortunately I didn't but I did try putting the images/drawings over the actual story pages which I thought was really effective but I felt they weren't as good because they weren't on the real pages on the book which would have been amazing, and would have given my final piece an amazing finish. But I borrowed the book from the library and wasn't able to draw on the real pages.

Overall I think that this project went really well, I may have had a few problems with my time and getting things finished but I think I did a good job in the end and I was very happy with all my final drawings. My favourite part of my images was probably the sketchy style to them making them look a bit messy. I'm also glad I just stuck to pen and paper as well and didn't add loads of bright colours and stuff. I think this would have ruined it personally, especially if I'd made a mistake half way through and ruined the whole picture. Keeping it simple was the best thing I could have done, also it means my work connects to the original drawings for Alice in Wonderland because they were all drawn by hand with no colour, just pen/pencil to paper. If I had more time I would definitely complete all my drawings and get the Madhatter's Tea Party in there and I would have experimented with the research more as well.

Hand Drawn Type - Adding weight

Paul:

After completing my letter skeletons I started adding weight. Some of the letter were hard to understand, but I got there in the end.

The images below are of my final letters:

Denis Brown: Calligraphers

Paul:

Denis Brown:

Born: 1968, Dublin, Ireland.
"Denis Brown's work stems from ancient traditions of manuscript writing, and he has engaged with these since his early teens. Rigorous formal training in traditional calligraphy at London's Roehampton Institute has formed a strong foundation for later experimental work. His work explodes from and extends traditions of calligraphy in the form of innovative works of art. Widely traveled with his work, he has lectured on four continents, and is internationally recognized as a world leader in the field of Letter Arts."

Education: Diploma in Advanced Calligraphy, Roehampton Institute, London, 1987 - 1989

Awards: RDS National Craft Competition 2009: Denis Brown was awarded two first prizes plus an RDS Committee of Arts Acquisition. Total of 23 prizes won in this annual competition in 20 years since 1989, including 10 first prizes in calligraphy category, 1 first prize in glass category; and 9 overall award.

2006: The crafts Council of Ireland annual Bursary award.

Celebrate Calligraphy (above)

Calligraphy by Denis Brown, 2010,

30 x 22 cm, 12" x 9"

Catalogue cover calligraphy for a 2011 exhibition celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators. The SSI must be the oldest calligraphy guild of them all, founded in UK in 1921 by students of Edward Johnston. I'm pleased to be reconnected with this society and its traditions, and still proud that I was their first Irish Fellow (FSSI), and at 20 years old was possibly the youngest fellow elected in the history of the society.

Calligraphy on a painted and gilt paper using custom techniques as I teach in my workshop called Experimental Gilding.

Quill Skill, Calligraphy by Denis Brown, 2004

"Gothic lettering does not have to follow traditional alphabet styles or so called Old English calligraphy. This example derives as much from an understanding of italic. It is own style as much as any style." - Denis Brown

The rhythm of quick upward flicks was here more valued than precisely ending strokes at the top of letters- the visible overlaps help portray the vigor of the moment of writing. A rhythm closer to italic pervades this Gothic lettering. The small capitals are also alive, since they were written with attitude. When one begins lettering, one is drawn to decorative styles an in so called Old English calligraphy but as soon as one starts to understand movement, fluency and gesture in writing, any calligraphy may gain more life.

"I started calligraphy in my early teens as a schoolboy. I loved the immediacy from the beginning- the ability to make letters with a few direct pen-strokes. Since receiving my first commissions at just 15, I've never looked back. While still studying for a degree in calligraphy at London's Roehampton Institute I was awarded fellowship of the UK Society of Scribes and Illuminators; at 20 I was their youngest Fellow ever in addition to being their first Fellow from Ireland. that was 23 years ago and my work has continually developed since then.

I push boundaries while continually refining and extending traditional skills. I use letterforms and writing to create three-dimensional layered works of art where a thousand words may paint a picture. At a time in history where handwriting is being eclipsed by e-mail, text messaging and other digital means of communication, my work explores the meaning and function of being a scribe in the 21st century.

I'm very fortunate to be known in many parts of the world as a leader in the field of calligraphy, and spend some time each year travelling to teach international workshops at the invitation of calligraphy guilds. This year I've also launched an online educational video program Calligraphy.TV which is an exciting new way I can share my knowledge." - Denis Brown

*Hermann Zapf

Paul:

Hermann Zadf was born November 8, 1918 in Nuremberg.

He is a German typeface designer who live in Darmstadt, Germany. He is married to a calligrapher and typefaces designer Gudrun Zadf von Hesse.

Zapf's work, which includes Palatino and Optima, has been widely copied, often against his will. The best known example may be Monotype's Book Antiqua, which shipped with Microsoft Office and was widely considered a "knockoff" of Palatino. In 1993, Zapf redesigned from A Typl (Association Typographique Internationale) over what he viewed as its hypocritical attitude toward unauthorised copying by prominent A Typl members.

Zadf deisnged types fro various stages of printing technology, including hot metal composition, phototypesetting (also called "cold type"), and finally digital typography for usein desktop publishing. His two most famous typefaces, Palatino and Optima, were designed in 1948 and 1952. Palatino was designed in conjunction with August Rosenberger, with careful attention to detail. It was named after 16th century Italian writing master Giambattista Palatino. Optima, a flared sans serif, was released by Stempel in 1958.

Julian Waters: Calligraphers

Paul:

Julian Waters:

(Calligrapher and type designer)

Born: 1957 in Hampshire, England. He is the son of a calligrapher, Sheila Waters, and a book binder/conservator, Peter Waters.

Education/Work: 1979 he studied with legendary German type designer Hermann Zapf*, who in 1984 asked the 27 year old Julian to substitute and teach his two-week masterclass at Rochester Institute of Technology. Waters succeeded Zapf n 1989. In the 1990s he combined the hand and computer, teaching "Letterform Design" for second year Graphics Design students at the Corcoran School of Art, Washington DC. Since 1978 he has taught specialized seminars on lettering and design attended by calligraphers and graphic designers all over the USA, Canada, Asia and Europe.

Water's is one of today's most versatile and respected lettering designers, Julian Waters is equally at home with pen, brush and co.

Looking through Julian's work, a lot of his calligraphy is very swirly and free-flowing. He enjoys lengthening the ends of letters and really exaggerate them to make them more decorative.

In 1981 Waters went to work with Gerard Valerio at Bookmark Studio in Washington DC, specialising in logo and publication design. Waters' work includes logos, poster, CD packaging, titling for books and publications. He works with design studios, publishers and as agencies on projects which may be enhanced by the warmth and refinement of calligraphy and hand lettering.

Julian's work is represented in many books on calligraphy and type, and he has received awards for the Type Directors Club, Art Directors Club, Print Magazines, Letter Arts Review Annual (four years in a row Waters had the most entries accepted in that annual).

He was the typographic designer for the new Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington Cemetery. In 1997 Adobe Systems released his new Multiple Master typeface, Waters Titling. He has also done custom corporate alphabet design, including a recent font for Host Marriott Services. As well as shared vision and Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

Thomas Ingmire: Calligraphers

Paul:

Thomas Ingmire:

(An american calligrapher)

Born: 1942 Ft.Wayne, in USA

Education: BSLA 1966, The Ohio State University: MLA, 1969, University of California, Berkeley: Post Graduate Study 1977-78, California State University of Los Angeles Art Department.

He has been doing solo exhibitions since 1982 then started doing group exhibitions in 1990. To this day he has won three awards.

- 1977, Elected Crafts Fellow of Society of Scribes and Illuminators, London, England ( the first American and first person outside of the UK to be elected to this status).
- 1980, Newberry Fellowship, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
- 1998, Awarded comission for public art installation, Mountain View Public Library.

Thomas Ingmire is known for all different forms of calligraphy, from magazines to poems. The image above and below are two examples of something you can order from his website for him to produce, you can get just initals or full names.

"You may select from different styles and colour options to have your name or initial designed and illuminated by Thomas Ingmire.

The image (3 3/4’ x 4 3/4”) is presented in a standard size 8” x 10” exhibition mat suitable for easy framing. All options include a 24k gold initial letter."

Thomas Ingmire, is one of the forerunners of calligraphic movement in the US. He has taught calligraphy since 1978 including workshops through the US and Canada, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Europe.

Thomas Ingmire and Monica Dengo, in association with the Accademia Delle Arti Calligrafiche in Cittadella, Italy will offer a calligraphic study program which will take place in the small northern Italian town of Cittadella.

The rich Italian heritage of lettering, art, and archeitecture will serve as the foundation for the calligraphic studies.

Thomas Ingmire has a very unique and abstract way of using lettering. For the majority of his type he uses acrylic on canvas, but every now and then he'll use ink. The piece on the right shows an example of his ink work. The use of white space really helps to highlight the letters. However, its very illegible as everything is so close together, but you its very clear that this is his work. No matter how hard I look at this piece of work though, I can't personally make out any distinct words, can only make out letters. Its very messy and compressed.

TEXT SPACE SERIES 1 (1999),

7” X 10.5,”

Sumi ink on handmade paper

(this is one of a number of similar small black and white pieces)

This is an example of Thomas Ingmire's acrylic on canvas (left). From a distance I thought this piece just looked like a load of squiggly lines and swirls, but if you really focus on it and look for letters they are actually really easy to see. I can even see numbers jumbled up within it. This piece is definitely more compressed and packed than the ink, its like he's layered up the type in this piece, getting lighter as they go into the background like they're fading away.

CITY RHYTHMS (2000)

DETAIL,
57” x 72,”

Acrylic on canvas

Legibility within Calligraphy

Paul:

Definition: The art of beautiful writing

legibility - How clear it is

Uncial - Monks would use this to write scripts and the bible. (bookhand)

Foundation hand - Eric Edward johnston

Italic - Italian script writer

Illegibility - Difficult or impossible to decipher : it cannot be read

Black letter - Gutterbird press (very upright strokes) - speeded up the process (very compressed) Became difficult to read.

Pushing the boundaries - A lot of graphic work goes into it (abstract)

Donald Jetson - Calligrapher to the queen (Working on a bible)

Velom - Can scrap back and start again.

(creating the background the adding the lettering ontop)

Klamath Meda Villa

Dancing around on paper (charcoal and paint on feet)

Calligrapher or Artist?

There is a crossover between calligraphers and artist. Its getting hard to tell the difference between the two.

Hand Drawn Type Research

Paul:

Abstract Calligraphy Fonts:

Everett Steeles - www.cooltext.com

This type isnt very legible. I found it really hard to understand what it said, the kerning between the letters isn't there for most of them, which means you wouldn't be able to adjust it. The fact they L's and T's have loops in them as well, next to the E's they look very similar which makes it even more illegible.

Greg's Other Hand - www.cooltext.com

This is another example of very close kerning. Nearly all the letters are connected to each other in this type. Having all the letters in capitals definitely helps make it more legible.

Five Cent - www.cooltext.com

Messy, relatively legible, the lettering is very weird though how they are all the same height. Normally the T would be taller than the rest of the type, same with the capitals. The ends of the E's join up with the rest of the letter too, this changes the shape of the E and makes it look like something else.

Ruthless Drippin Two. Regular - www.abstractfonts.com

Very messy. Because there is so much dripping from the letters it makes it difficult to read, I think it would be more effective if it had less dripping. It doesn't help that the actual font of the letters is a bit illegible, the dripping has just increased that. Looks a lot like something you'd see on a halloween sign.

Billy Angel Font - www.abstractfronts.com

free-flowing lines, made in one quick swift. Very soft and easy to read even though all the letters are connected to each other. The words are connected together and don't have much leading between them either which you would think would make it more illegible but the way the capitals have massive flicks off them helps make a bit of space.

Ginga, Regular - www.abstractfonts.com

Free-flowing lettering, very messy. Comes across very scratchy and rough. The flicks of paint/ink around the lettering is what makes it seem messy and this makes it a little illegible but the text as a whole is actually pretty easy to read. The tail from the letters looks like its been done to underline itself. The lines look like they've been produced with a pen thats running out or even leaking?

Abstract Calligraphy Artwork:

Kazuya Akimoto

www.kazuya-akimoto.com

"Japanese Abstract Vertical Calligraphy "

This artist is known for fine art, but he also does these abstract calligraphy pieces quite often. This piece stood out to me as at first glance it just looks like a load of paint mixed together. But the closer you look the more you can start to see letter forming, different people will see different things, and you see different thing each time you look at it. I think its a really good example of abstract calligraphy and whether or not you can tell the difference between calligraphy or art. When I looked at this I definitely thought it was art first not calligraphy.

postgraffiti.wordpress.com

Acrylic on canvas :: Nuno de Matos 2010

Asemic writing is a wordless open semantic form of writing. This new work is close to Abstract Calligraphy and abstract Graffiti. Abstract writing is like a choreographic doodle for Matox. I found this piece really interesting because it looks like messy typical graffiti with a softer more elegant type over the top. Like the graffiti is just a background. At first it just looks like lots of swirls and stuff covering graffiti, but when you look closer you can see letters forming in the swirls. This is a great example of abstract calligraphy, definitely different to the majority of others I've seen. I personally feel this piece looks more like calligraphy than art.

Urban Abstract by Jopsu Ramu of Musuta and Shun Kawakami of Artless

www.hipbip.com/2009/12/urban-abstract-by-musuta
"Urban Abstract is a digital art piece created by Jopsu Ramu, the art director of Musuta Ltd(a multidisciplinary design agency based in Helsinki & Tokyo) in collaboration with Shun Kawakami (artless Inc.) an artist and designer from Tokyo. This digital art piece is being shown as the November break bumpers on TV Nelonen, one of the biggest commercial TV channels in Finland"

This piece comes from a video (can be seen on the link) and is definitely more art based than calligraphy. The only clear calligraphy part is the beginning with the number 4 within the image. Watching the video you could make letters out of different sections of the video but overall its more artistic.

Postcard Research

McBess

"Mc Bess (Matthieu Bessudo), born July 5, 1984, is a French illustrator living in London. His style is a mix of influences such as Fleischer Studios' old cartoons he actualizes by using contemporary shapes, symbols and types. Mc Bess drawings often represent himself at the center of a surrealist world filled with food and musical references, such as amps, guitars and records. He's also a musician in the band "The Dead Pirates"

All of McBess's work is very similar, similar characters and colours. Very rarely does he include more colour than simple black and white, but I think his work is best this way. It really brings out the detail in his work. If you added colour to his more complex detailed pieces it would seem like there is too much going on and you wouldn't know where to look. Keeping it simple means you can take you time looking over the whole piece without getting a headache. I love McBess's use of lines though and want to bring this into my work and see if it works. I love working with black and white, its so classic.

Reuden Rude

"Reuben Rude was born in San Francisco, as the sun was setting on the Free Love era. His bohemian parents then moved "back to the land" to the woods of Northern California, where he spent the better part of his childhood without a television. This lack of technology forced him to spend almost every waking hour drawing and painting. When he moved back to the city to attend art school, he got into all the usual trouble with graffiti writers, skateboarders and art students. He now lives in San Francisco with his wife and eight-year-old daughter, and yes, a television. However, he still spends most of his waking hours drawing and painting. Sometimes he even gets paid for it."

This piece really stood out to me because of the lack of bright colours in it. Even colours that would normally be bright have been dulled down (the rainbow). I think this piece resembles depression very well. The expression on the girls face and the way she's standing and the fact its raining just shows cold and loneliness.

Mcbess

"My name is Isabel Greenberg and I'm a freelance illustrator and writer based in London. I've just graduated from Illustration at the University of Brighton."

Isabel's work caught my eye instantly as it was the front cover of a magazine I was looking through. The amount of detail added to the piece makes it so interesting. It's one of those pieces that you see something different every time you look at it. Personally I think this is what a good piece of artwork is, something people can't take their eyes off of because there is too much to look at. The fact Isabel has used such basic colour makes it easier to look as well, if this piece was covered in colour it would probably just give you a headache, it wouldn't work as well as it does in black and white. I love how simple it is but so affective.

Chris Buzelli

"Chris was influenced by his Grandfather Armondo Buzelli at young age, painting side by side. After graduating from Rhode Island School of Design, Chris moved to New York City to start his career as an illustrator in 1995. His oil paintings have appeared in many national and international publications."

I discovered Chris's work in a Nobrow magazine, this piece caught my eye because the use of colour. The blue tones in his work makes it seem very cold and quite depressing which I thought fitted in with my work perfectly. The position and look on the child's face also fit in with the colour scheme of the painting, they are very vague and her eyes seem almost worried.

Ariana Page Russell

When I was researching text and image, I came across this image and found it very interesting. At first glance I thought the image was just photoshopped or edited in some way to make it seem like the text was made of skin, but after looking deeper I found out that the text is actually made produced on Ariana's actual skin.

"I have dermatographia a condition in which one's immune system releases excessive amounts of histamine using capillaries to dilate and welts appear (lasting about thirty minutes) when the hypersensitive skin's surface is lightly scratched. This allows me to painlessly draw on my skin with just enought time to photograph the results."

Postcard designs

'Ben and Andy do a postcard'

My depression sketches/thumbnails:

I researched the word 'Depression' to see what different definitions came up, this way I could see what other people thought depression was and what signs they might see in someone with depression. I thought that this word 'Depression' was good for me because I suffer from it so it was an easy word to understand but isn't always easy to get out how you feel by picture or text, thought it might be a challenge for me.

NHS - "Depression is a serious illness. Health professionals use the words depression, depressive illness or clinical depression to refer to it. It is very different from the common experience of feeling unhappy, miserable or fed up for a short period of time.

When you are depressed, you may have feelings of extreme sadness that can last for a long time. These feelings are severe enough to interfere with your daily life, and can last for weeks or months, rather than days."

Rethink - "Everyone experiences variation in mood: sometimes you just feel a bit low, or experience normal grief that accompanies the loss of someone you love. But a long lasting low mood that interferes with the ability to function, feel pleasure, or take an interest in things is not merely a case of the blues - it is an illness known as depression....Depressionaffects a person’s physical state, mood and thought processes. People with depression cannot merely "pull themselves together" and get better. It is not a sign of personal weakness or a condition that can be willed away but an illness that needs treatment to reduce symptoms."

3 Draft designs for final postcard:

These were the 3 thumbnails I thought had the strongest meaning to the word 'depression'. The pills are a typical sign of depression and everyone can recognise this. They can mean two different things as well, they could mean overdosing to from depression or trying to control it with antidepressants, personally I prefer the meaning of overdosing because it is the stronger feeling you get with depression, the want to harm/kill yourself.

I think the tree postcard design is less noticeable as depression as trees can resemble a lot of different things but depression doesn't usually come to your mind first, but thats why I chose it, because it isn't obvious. I see this as depression because its dull and lonely. It's leaves have all fallen off and it seems dead/cold, the colours aren't lively (which is why I've only used pen to emphasise on this) and you get these feelings a lot with depression.

Finally my third design is just facing depression. Looking at someone you can't always tell they have depression unless they find it necessary to show it on the outside and let the world know, but 1 in 10 people have depression and the majority of the time you won't know but they do. On the inside they are just in pain, but are great at hiding it with smiles and kind words, always putting other peoples feelings before their own. Hiding behind it makes it a lot easier to handle other people because they don't treat you differently and you don't want them to. You just want to be normal, and want people to be able to talk to you about their problems. This postcard shows how depression is shown when other people aren't around. Feeling alone, usually upset from it.

Final postcard design:

(Drawn by hand, copied onto the computer, traced and coloured in photoshop then moved to illustrator to add text)

For my final postcard I decided on the third draft I produced. I thought this was the strongest postcard for how 'depression' actually feels not just how other people see it or think it is. Depression makes you feel useless, alone, like you don't do/get anything right. Depression can't just be turned off but it can be hidden from the people you love and the people around you so they can't see you have it unless you choose to tell them. I feel this postcard shows exactly how it feels. Having a black background makes it seem dark and lonely like nothing/no-one else is there. Then using darker/duller colours on the figure makes it seem more unhappy, more distant. The reason I've got the figure in this position with its hand against its face is because I wanted it to seem like it was thinking about something, possibly staring at the world around them while they were just alone in their room. Having the word 'depression' moving down the face like this was to represent tears, I think it is very affective and gives off the impression they are crying, that its not actually a word.