Posted by Chris Owen on January 01, 2004
Mike JacksonIn about 2 months, for the third time in the past 33 years, I'm getting back, full time, into the carved sign game. In preparation for this, I'm looking for those quintessential fonts/alphabets, of all styles, that look grand when carved and gilded.
My taste leans more towards carving hand-penned or brushed alphabets, but some typestyles work quite well, especially when tinkered with in Illustator.
My favorite, carved, Roman alphabet is the penned, wide one in the Speedball Textbooks. Great pointed serifs. Fairly bold, but well-balanced by the thin strokes. The O is wide and looks great looped together in double-O words. You can tell that it's never been touched by a computer.
I've carved a ton of Christmas signs using the Modern Text alphabet, on the last page of Callinham's "Sign Writing and Glass Embossing", 1871. A neat little, 225pp, British book. The Embossing part is on using hydrofluoric acid. There's 2 short chapters on gilding. It was re-published by American Life books in the 80's (I think - my copy doesn't say). I think I bought my copy from Signcraft, in the late 80's. There are now 3 originals (I think) at abebooks.com, starting at $50.
So, I ask you. What alphabets or typestyles have you carved and gilded, of any style, and were more than pleased with the results? Also, which do you ENJOY carving, the most?
Thanks,
Chris Owen
Cam BortzAssuming you are talking about incised carved letters, I'd suggest Friz Quadrata or Trajan. A medium weight version is easy to carve since you don't have to take out a lot of wood. Since neither of those styles have overly defined serifs, the chisel works easily at the tops and bottoms.
I particularly like Century, but it takes quite a bit longer to carve than Friz or Trajan. I used to carve a lot of Goudy letters. A lot depends on the size of the letters and the angle you carve into the wood. A shallow angle is easier to read than a deep angle, especially if gilded.
Good luck,
Mike Jackson
Jon HarlI like the older Roman faces, like Garamond and the variations of the Trajan alphabet, for the same reason Jon mentioned. Rather than adjust them on-screen, I do that while doing the actual layout of the copy on the substrate. That's one reason I don't like carving trough a mask; I trace my lettering onto the surface and make modifications, and usually make smaller adjustments according to the tools I'm using. For example, I may lay out a job with a face such as Goudy, but when I carve I use sharp serifs (with a V-tool) instead of the round ends in Goudy. Another trick is to modify crossbars (on A , H , E , or F) which can be done without having to adjust kerning. This gives a computer-generated design a more "hand-drawn" look, IMO.
Bill CosharekMichael Harvey's book "Creative Lettering Today" has some beautiful alphabets for carving. It also teaches one how to draw letters therefore getting you past the "what fonts look hand done" thought process. Traditonally Imperial Roman Capitals are hand carved. Father Edward Catich's book "The Origin of the Serif" is a great book for this albhabet. If you want to jump right to the computer Michael Harvey's typefaces Ellington and Strayhorn are beautiful.and Carol Twombly's Trajan is a copy of Imperial Roman Caps. All three of these typefaces are available from Adobe.
Good Luck,
Jon Harl
I really can't think of any particular fonts right now, but just wanted to suggest that if you have Eye Candy filters, you can use the 'carve' filter to simulate the carved look in most any font. This might give you an idea of what works and what does not.
Denver Chapter of the Letterheads