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barefootliam β Requiem
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#death #gothic #sad #scribed #written #mideveil #midevil #textures #textstyle
Published: 2004-04-10 04:29:40 +0000 UTC; Views: 23211; Favourites: 75; Downloads: 483
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Description
The Latin text to a Requiem Mass (Mozart or Faure or Verdi probably, I actually don't remember whose I used) written out by me with a William Mitchell dip calligraphy pen.The pen holds enough ink only for a few strokes - you have to refill it carefully sometimes more than once for a single letter, or sometimes once for a whole word.
The whole thing took me about a week of spare time in 1992. It didn't scan very well, sorry original is A3 (tabloid) and does not fit on my scanner.
I don't mind non-commercial use (e.g. manipulations) as long as you let me know first. I have a png file at slightly higher resolution than this.
There's more calligraphy on my website, www.holoweb.net/~liam/picturesβ¦
and more in my gallery here of course.
This image was used on the front page of Time Magazine in 2006.
Liam
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This is epic! I am so impressed that you could write so much on a single page with no obvious mistake, with a dip pen no less! I studied and practiced calligraphy for a number of years and did not have the courage to do that. The most I wrote on a single page was addresses on envelopes. Well done!Β Β Β Β Β
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Thank you! 
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Great work and you can see the time spent in this piece
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thanks! Yeah, took a week as i recall.
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I like that.Β Did you get this out of a book or did you write that?
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The text is the libretto for the Latin requiem mass; i think i got it from either FaurΓ©βs Requiem, or Mozartβs. I wrote the text out by hand.
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That's amazing.Β You got quite a hand and talent
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That's truly incredible! So neat, orderly and of course beautiful! All around pleasing to the eye.
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This image was used on the front page of Time Magazine in 2006.
Wowee!!! What an accomplishment - both this fantastic piece of linguistic art, and getting onto the cover of Time.Β
Well done, on both.
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Thank you! i nearly died when my husband called and said, "It's the art director from Time Magazine"
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This looks damn amazing! I see you use the same kind of style often though. Is this style based on a specific source? I've never seen those capitals before. I especially like the D.
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The upper case initials here have Foundation Hand form with Black Letter inner decorations.
I didn't base it on a specific source that I can recall, but it was a long time ago!
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Nice. I never heard of Foundation Hand before but it's a script I should remember.
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See Edward Johnston, Writing, Illuminating and Lettering - a book that's been in print for about a century βΊ
It looks dated now, with its low x-height and heavy serifs; I've tended to use an italic serif instead, and often a larger x-height than the 4Β½ nib-widths he suggested.
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I must say I'm much more focussed on type design than calligraphy right now, however that book seems to be really powerful. In case I start working on more blackletter typefaces I'm sure it's a must-have. Though as I mainly focus on the Roman now, the only chirography book I have is Gerrit Noordzij's "The Stroke".
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Writing Illuminating & Lettering focuses more on calligraphy in general and only a little on blackletter.
I do have quite a few blackletter & historical script references. There was a great talk at ATypI in ... hmmmm. 1997 about the influence of brush calligraphy and lettering on roman inscriptions, e.g. comparing the shapes of P B and R. I don't think typefaces and lettering are really disconnected.
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Obviously they're not disconnected. In fact, many type designers don't seem to appreciate Gerrit Noordzij's theory of The Stroke, but when you see it as A solution and not THE solution for fluent type design, it really becomes a magnificent tool. Sometimes I feel like type designers don't base their work on chirographic principles enough. I personally adore typefaces like TrinitΓ© and Ruse, though there's equally impressive work to be found in typefaces which aren't based on calligraphic forms. Whether you base your typeface on calligraphy or not, I think it's very important to know the chirographic roots.
Having said that, I know my type history so although I sometimes do calligraphy in the hope it will inspire me to do some unconventional shapes or features for a typeface, in general I'm not practicing anything chirographic which is why regarding books I focus more on typefaces than calligraphy. I think it's also very much a matter of what you want to achieve with your typefaces. If I want to design something like Baskerville it might work better to get inspired by mechanical aspects of type design than chirographic aspects, while it's the other way around for Jenson.
By the way, could you tell me in short what was said about the shapes in P, B and R?
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P B and R - that the overall balance means the "common" part of the letter isn't actually the same in each of them, in actual inscriptions, nothing earth-shattering really, but the role of brush vs "mechanical" chisel-only lettering wasn't considered really clear at the time (1997, wow, not that long ago!)
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