Alphabet Roadtrip

Lettering Design for Book Covers: Samples of Historically-based Calligraphy and Hand Lettering for Titles

What I like about book title design is the variety of skills I get to use. It's not just about pens and brushes and lettering techniques.  Each genre of book requires a different expression of historical era and a feel for the part of popular (or elite) culture the book lives in. These examples of book title and author typography are all based on traditional historical letterforms.

"Juliet" is Humanist, with a flourish. Alexandra Ripley's "Love Divine" is a very condensed and stylized version of Uncial. "The Lost Recipe for Happiness" is a nostalgic mix of small caps with ornamental italic accents. "Nelson's Trafalgar" incorporates a hand-drawn cartouche with a script that is more font than calligraphy, although it is completely hand-lettered.

 

The childrens' and fantasy genre books below draw from historical sources also, but with subtle differences. Each cover treatment should look unique to the author, and the typography and hand-lettering become important parts of the author and series brand. "Babe" is done with a calligraphy pen on rough paper, which gives it a soft look that goes with the sweetness of the cover colors and the rounded animal shapes. "The Knight" started as calligraphic Roman Caps but was then inked and given a more retro-typographic feeling, enhanced by the outline. The bolder serifs give it a masculine and heroic feeling echoed in the illustration.

 

 

Additional samples of the Uncial style showing how differently it can be expressed. For Brian Jaques (yes, you can fall in love with a mouse!) the ornamental serifs and quirky curves go with Martin the Warrior's character and mimic the ornamental border. "Son of the Sword" is closest to a purely historical Uncial of any of these titles, done with an edged pen on rough paper. The Uncial d is one of my favorite letters of all time.

 

Hand lettering and hand lettered typography © Iskra Johnson

See my book jacket portfolio at www.iskradesign.com

Handwriting in Lettering Design: Examples of Unique Handwriting Used Instead of Fonts

I've been working on a wonderful handwriting project this month, which I'll be able to post part of in a few weeks when it has gone to print. In the meantime, because I get so many requests for handwriting I am posting part of my portfolio today as an easy online reference.

All of these projects were for clients who wanted a look and voice that they could not find in existing fonts. Handwriting is a particular part of lettering design that has unique challenges. Fonts always look like fonts, no matter how many alternate letters are added. And they have to go through the sifting machine of endless compromise: each letter has to play well with every other letter no matter the circumstance. This takes away a lot of their spirit. I have designed proprietary handwriting fonts for several clients including Betty Crocker and PBS. The fonts turned out well, but I always felt the pain of sacrificing my children: those wonderful leaping upstrokes and sweeping descenders and playful flirty serifs all had to be called in from recess and made to sit still in class. In this portfolio page of handwriting the letters get to express their personality.

You can see my complete handwriting portfolio at www.iskradesign.com

How Do You Say Coffee? Expressive Mixed Media Calligraphy

When I do expressive calligraphy, expression wins out over technique and traditionally beautiful lettering design. What matters most is the personality of the words, and in this case, the personality of the coffee customer.

I live in Coffee Town USA, yes, that would be Seattle, and I am a confirmed devotee. I do love to watch how people order their favorite drinks. Particularly those people who request the "no-foam-no-caf-non-fat---latte?" I mean, what is this? This is not a latte. It's simply a state of denial. But then I'm in the camp of coffee-is-a-vehicle-for-cream, or why bother.

This piece is done in watercolor, guache, felt pen, pointed pen, brush and a variety of brushes. It was created as part of my ongoing fascination with letterforms as an expression of voice. I see my job as a contemporary lettering artist as being a channel for character. I'm not a stylist with a "hand" but a character actress, making visible the intangibles of tone of voice, personality and unique DNA.

See more expressive calligraphy and calligraphic illustration at www.iskradesign.com.

Snow Day in the Studio: Expressive Calligraphy

It snowed this week. Power was intermmitant and I had to shut down my computer for awhile. It gave me time to look out the window and slow down. It was truly lovely, especially at night, when I went for long walks. In the morning the light in the studio was luminous and bright, and I didn't need to turn on any lamps.

I mixed some water the color of the sky and the snow and the stellar's blue jay on the roof, and did some loose expressions of "SnowDay." Often my work is highly refined for reproduction, and must be absolutely legible. My only task here was to please myself and it did not matter if the words could be read from thirty feet away. It's like skiing, using a pen this way. The paper is just like snow, velvety and welcoming, and forgiving you if you fall.

Edged Pen with Pelican Tusche and Cobalt Blue on Teton Cover and Karma Cover.

See more expressive lettering at  www.iskradesign.com

A Fabulous Video Animation of a Bookstore

This charming video came to my inbox this week. A bookstore, animated, in all its touchable, three dimensional quirky wonder. Check it out, and support your local bookstore!

New Calligraphic Icons, Work in Progress

©Iskra Design

Icon project for an art center: different approaches to representing dance, by way of the classic ballet slipper.

Handwriting in Advertising: New Project for Dulera

When the art director for this project sent me the photos of the model I knew exactly what her handwriting should look like. I love this kind of expressive work, where true handwriting shines. In this kind of work I am an actress, channeling the spirit and character of the subject.

Zen Brushwork in Lettering Design: Tools of the Trade

When the art director at Penguin USA called to ask me to write the word "Zen" for a book called Zen and the Art of Making a Living it couldn't have come at a better time. I was at that very moment sitting on my meditation cushion in a corner of my office contemplating The Emptiness after finishing several advertising campaigns, and I had nothing on my calendar. Although I felt cold terror at the prospect of this little three letter word, a word that conjured centuries of calligraphy masters in their robes and sandals not to mention the three sensei I had studied with, I said "Sure." And then I said to myself, as I gathered up a dozen brushes and pens and stacks of paper, "It can't be any harder than that other three-letter word, "new."

Stones and metal weight used to keep fragile rice paper from lifting

At that time I was still grinding my own ink, using a traditional inkstone. Now for most brushwork I use Moon Palace Ink which I get from John Neal Books, although I sometimes grind ink from a stick and mix it with liquid ink for certain very absorbent papers.

  

Inkstone and traditional sumi ink.

The ink must be tested out many times to see how black it is, blotted and tried on different papers, with different brushes, as each one gives a different effect. I also use pens, which give a different character entirely.

Automatic pen, oldstyle ruling pen, edged pen, new ruling pen, steel brush

As I work I am designing in the moment with the gesture of the brush. I try to remain intuitive and kinesthetic, feeling the drag of the ink and the paper and experimenting with the invisible element of calligraphy: time. How fast or slow you move the brush completely transforms the stroke. Design, however, includes inconvenient facts like the resemblance of a "Z" to a "2" and psychological factors: should the word feel elegant and disciplined? artful? playful? ordinary? I keep all this into account as well as the history of western calligraphic forms and the basic styles of shodo. The final style that was chosen for the title is based on a hybrid of "bone" and "clerical" styles of Chinese calligraphy. The book is now in its fifth printing, but has kept the same title throughout.

                             
Photographs and calligraphy © 2011 Iskra Johnson

Part Two: Zen Brushwork in Brand Design and Advertising

  Letterforms and illustration © Iskra Design

Asian-inspired brush work can be used to create distinctive brandmarks in packaging, in editorial illustration, graphic identities and publishing. These are a few examples of different techniques, some done with brush and some with a pen, that all come from training in sumi-e.

Muir Glen Brandmark Design with Mark Oliver

Mark Oliver Design recently contacted me to work on the rebranding of Muir Glen. Sometimes words have an aesthetically fortunate combination of letters, and it was a delight to try many different approaches. Although our solutions weren't chosen for the final package I am showing them here as they represent a good range of styles that are appropriate for contemporary package branding.

   

Here is the brandmark in context in Mark Oliver's package applications. Simplicity and functionality: recipes combined with exquisite watercolor illustrations (I do not know the name of the illustrator.)