English that looks like Chinese. "At first glance, Square Word Calligraphy appears to be nothing more unusual than Chinese characters, but in fact it is a new way of rendering English words in the format of a square so they resemble Chinese characters. Chinese viewers expect to be able to read Square Word Calligraphy but cannot. Western viewers, however are surprised to find they can read it. Delight erupts when meaning is unexpectedly revealed." (Britta Erickson,
The Art of Xu Bing.)
[more inside]
posted by jef
on Aug 27, 2012 -
66 comments
The Art of Hermann Zapf film "was produced in 1967 at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City and in my design studio in Dreieichenhain, Germany... After long discussions and the help of a lot of alcohol
we started late in the night. I was sitting at a slanted glass table with a hot spotlight in my neck. Frank Robinson was lying on the floor with the camera ready for a frog-view shot. My task was to write beautiful letters with ink which dried as soon the pen touched the slippery surface of an astralon sheet." —
Hermann Zapf
posted by netbros
on Jan 23, 2011 -
16 comments
Custom Letters is an evolving category that includes calligraphy, sign painting, graffiti, stone carving, digital lettering, hand lettering, paper sculpture, and type design.
posted by minifigs
on Jun 18, 2009 -
17 comments
"
[Celtic] knots are most known for their adaptation for use in the ornamentation of Christian monuments and manuscripts like the 8th century St. Teilo Gospels, the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels."
[more inside]
posted by litterateur
on Jun 2, 2009 -
9 comments
Selections of Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Calligraphy from the collection of The Library of Congress. 373 individual pieces from ranging in time from the 9th to the 19th Century, all explained and some translated. A few personal favorites (note that very high quality scans can be viewed by clicking the appropriate link after clicking thumbnail):
marriage decree,
verses on tragic love,
practice sheet,
verses 10-11 of the 48th chapter of the Qur'an,
poetic verses offering advice,
frontispiece of Qur'anic exegesis and
quatrain by Rumi. There are also four special presentations:
Calligraphers of the Persian Tradition,
Ottoman Calligraphers and Their Works,
Qur’anic Fragments and
Noteworthy Items. This last presentation also features representational art, for instance images of
The battle of Mazandaran and
the Persian king Bahram Gur hunting.
posted by Kattullus
on May 12, 2008 -
11 comments
Keyboard calligraphy "To produce such a typeface, Müteferrika knew he had to analyze Arabic script. Calligraphers might learn to make the correctly shaped letter combinations by practice, without conscious application of tens of thousands of rules, but for machine reproduction of the script, deciphering those rules was exactly what was essential."
posted by dhruva
on May 1, 2008 -
28 comments
Keyboards Are Not Like Nibs: Fountain pens - or writing instruments in general - rule. Lately though, the main manufacturers have stooped to ballpoints, gels and other madnesses. Just as the stupid
calligraphy fad killed proper handwriting, the main fountain pen manufacturers have been their own hangmen. I love
Pelikan but my main hearbreak is
Rotring, whose
rapidograph 0.10 and 0.18 and
isograph 0.20 (
this latter line now sadly reduced to college sets) are my favourite scratching sticks. Are you
holding a torch for any of those legendary manufacturers (
Parker,
Waterman,
Cross,
Schaeffer,
Aurora,
Lamy et caetera) who have gone
down the drain? What glides your writing hand? Is the pseudish, unpardonably expensive and increasingly naff
Montblanc the last pen manufacturer to uphold its own standards? When you do put pen to paper - if you still do at all - what's
your stubborn choice? Damn it, you must use something to log into your
Moleskine!
posted by MiguelCardoso
on May 1, 2003 -
96 comments
