So, this is a new experiment I’m trying out. I want to sync lettering to music lyrics in real-time. I slowed down the music to play at 15% the normal rate and lettered (poorly) in Illustrator along with the words. I then sped up the lettering animation to match the rate of the song. The challenge is to letter at the right speed so it looks like the words are appearing as they are being said without having to do any editing. This is a very very crappy test of what I eventually hope to get. Now I just need to get the lettering synced with the music, memorize the lyrics (I thought I had… oops) and make it more interesting somehow. I think it looked better when I zoomed in and the lettering got bolder and filled more of the screen. More (and hopefully much better) to come. The song is Sky Blue Sky by Wilco.
This is a folded pen I made out of the tab of a Dr. Pepper can. Originally I wasn’t too happy with the results so I put it away for awhile. However, I tried filing it to smooth the edges following Peter Thornton’s advice on using folded pens and now it’s a fairly useable tool. I’ve been practicing with it for about a week now and I quite enjoy the unpredictability of it. The ink that worked best for me was walnut ink—a dry powder derived from peat that you mix with water. This watery consistency made for a consistent ink flow but also created some neat joining of strokes exiting out of a letter or where paths crossed. the ink remained wet on top of the paper for a few moments allowing for it to be pushed around.
I recently participated in a workshop taught by English calligrapher, Peter Thornton. It was a wonderful experience and I learned a ton. Peter filled the class with equal parts humor and great lessons.
Two out of the three workshop days were focused on the painted letters of German calligrapher, Adolf Bernd.
Bernd did these lovely watercolor letter paintings for over twenty years during his retirement until his death in 1994. We took inspiration from his work and applied it to our own.
This is one of my more successful pieces from the workshop.
And I did these just for fun.
Very cool, however, it seems that it’s actually drawing the letters rather than making them with a series of single strokes with a broad edge nib. So it’s not much more than a glorified digital printer. But don’t tell that to the robot.
You’re safe, human calligraphers… for now.
via Hoefler & Frere-Jones
This fat, experimental alphabet was done in Illustrator using my Wacom tablet. I created a calligraphic brush with these settings: Angle 30º, Roundness 50% and Diameter 300pt with Pressure Variation set to 300 pt. I wanted to see what a brush with a huge range of pressure sensitivity would do. Here you can see the skeleton strokes that created the letterforms.
The overall shape it took was unintentional at first as I abandoned all attempts at maintaining consistency and began to grow the letters line by line. I just decided to go with it after the first few lines.
I used a Brause broad-edge nib and black Sumi ink on the chipboard back cover of a sketch book for this one. Oh yeah, and a bit o’ Photoshop of course. This is the original scan.
Ghoulish Glyphs has been fun. I look forward to doing it again next year.
This is one of my Dad’s favorite lines from the hilarious Mel Brooks film, Young Frankenstein. The full quote is actually;
Inga: Werewolf!
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Werewolf?
Igor: There.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: What?
Igor: There, wolf. There, castle.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Why are you talking that way.
Igor: I thought you wanted to.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: No, I don’t want to.
Igor: Suit yourself. I’m easy.
Here’s a quick and dirty all caps font I created entirely in Illustrator with a flat pen brush using my Wacom Bamboo. I then took it into FontLab for spacing and font generation. Back In illustrator, I set the alphabet and wrote a Halloweenie haiku to go with it.
From now until the 31st, I’ll be keeping 26 symbols Halloween themed with Ghoulish Glyphs. Look out for creepy characters, spooky words and phrases and maybe a bone-chilling alphabet.
First Alphabet drawn with my new Wacom Bamboo. Created entirely in Photoshop using a custom brush with the following settings; size 60 px, 138° angle, 32% roundness, 10% spacing with shape dynamics set to pen pressure.
