nancy sharon collins's blog
Type foundry digitally preserves vintage stationer’s lettering styles
[Guest editor: Tamye Riggs]
The Sweet collection is composed of typefaces based on the engraver’s lettering styles that came into fashion at the beginning of the twentieth century. The collection is anchored by Sweet Sans, Mark van Bronkhorst’s interpretation of the engraver’s sans serif (kin to the drafting alphabets popularized in the early 1900s).
A type designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Van Bronkhorst had long been a fan of these historic faces, many of which had all but disappeared from use. A few cuts of the engraver’s sans style existed in digital form, including Sacker’s Gothic (Monotype Imaging) and Engraver’s Gothic (Bitstream), but these interpretations were somewhat limited in their scope.
Engraving Talk at Type Directors Club June 16
Engraving—Letterpress' Shy Sister
Thursday, June 16
6-8:00pm
Type Directors Club
http://tdc.org/tdc/archives/3652
Commercial engraving for print has an illustrious history as a vital technique for graphic design and typography. Engraving is a fluid, free-hand expression restricted only by the perimeter of the surface upon which an engraving is worked. The exquisite beauty and gracefulness of arcs and shading inherent in the engraved line is unparalleled. For centuries prior to the digital age, engraving was the dominant methodology for teaching and innovation in lettering, and especially for calligraphy.
Engraving Workshop
Engraving workshop this Friday. This is a breezy overview of what is contemporary, commercial "engraving".
Friday, March 18 @ 6:00pm
Loyola University New Orleans
Media Room 1
Monroe Library
(This workshop was also recently given at)
Tuesday, March 1 @ 5:00pm
Southeastern Louisiana University)
Each workshop will include:
• what is engraving and why do we love it.
• historic specimens of weird and fantastic engraving.
• contemporary applications for engraving.
• how to prepare art for engraving, and the various kinds of "engraving".
• how to engrave...
• ...or, how to work with an engraver (so you just have to design and leave the engraving to somebody else.)
Monograms, Monograms, Monograms
Posted earlier this week, a new monogram story http://www.feltandwire.com/2011/01/25/monograms-a-la-modern/ including our copper photo-engraved plates, hand cut, 1/2" steel dies and sets of engraved monogram notes.
http://feltandwireshop.com/products/engraved-monogrammed-notes
Our copper-engraved monograms are created in Illustrator based on a rudimentary gridded template that had been converted by an engraver from the original pantograph Masterplate system that goes back to the 1930s.
Notice that some of the monogram styles pictured in the (fuzzy—sorry, hand held iPhone) photo above are the very styles in the letterpress types at the beginning of the article.
Inaugural Meeting of Louisiana Engravers Society (working name, any suggestions?)
PRESS RELEASE: COVINGTON, LA--
Type Makes it into the Political Arena
This image was captured yesterday by my nephew's wife at the Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart's Washington D.C. rallies:
Its nice to see that type has made it into the political mainstream (though, I personally am quite fond of Times New Roman.) Here's an article on the event though, woefully, they did not cover the font moment. http://theweek.com/article/index/207253/stephen-colbert-and-jon-stewarts...
Herb Lubalin Resume Circa 1966
Humorous resume by Herb Lubalin as published in the 1966 newsletter, "Thumbnail", Art Directors and Designers (ADDA) of New Orleans, http://typophile.com/node/53937
This delightful memory was recently discovered in the archives of AIGA New Orleans. ADDA was the forerunner of AIGA New Orleans.
Is Engraving Important to Teaching Type & Design History?
Saturday, October 16 at 2:00 pm
Session IV, Panel 3
“Engraving: Letterpress’s Shy Sister”
The American Printing History Association
35th Annual Conference
Corcoran College of Art + Design
Corcoran Gallery of Art, 500 Seventeenth St. NW
Washington, DC
http://printinghistory.org/programs/conference.php
(This presentation was first given at ATypeI in Dublin, September, 2010, http://www.atypi.org/03_Dublin/40_timetables/main/main12sept_html?date=2...)
A new morning for mourning stationery? An old print form finds new relevence
This just in from Mohawk Fine Papers, Felt & Wire:
"[Tom Biederbeck] Nancy Sharon Collins thinks the time has come to revive a useful asset for our letter library: mourning stationery. Collins, a designer, researcher and writer about paper and print, says mourning stationery was intended to help the bereaved adapt to a new role in society. I asked her about her interest, how mourning stationery functioned graphically, and how it might have relevance for our time."
http://www.feltandwire.com/2010/08/11/a-new-morning-for-mourning-stationery
HELP! Looking For Great Quotes About Type
I am looking for quotes about the definition of typography to use in a book.
I am pretty sure someone coined the phrase, "words we see" but can not find the citation or author. Any and all such quotes about what is typography would be appreciated. And, I will credit both the original author and who has helped me by posting it!
Are Greeting Cards Dead?
Along with technology, the tradition for store-bought notes of sentiment are ever changing, read all about it on Mohawk Fine Paper's Felt & Wire news blog http://www.feltandwire.com/?p=10246
(And, you can purchase this amazing, hand engraved "Thank You" card here: http://www.feltandwireshop.com/products/312-gilded-thank-you
Hand Engraved Social Stationery on Ephemera Society
New article about what is engraving for print application, and, specifically, for the stationery trade in the U.S.
FLOOD BOOK Wins AIGA New Orleans Award
FLOOD BOOK, becomes the winner of the 2009 AIGA New Orleans Design Award for experimenting and social relevance. http://www.aiganeworleans.org/events/design-awards
Funky Fifties Type
Engraved cocktail invitation type taken from a vintage invitation and re-purposed:
Odd-Ball Correspondence School Short Story
While researching the International Correspondence School recently, I was reminded of the odd-ball J.D. Salinger short story about a young man reduced by sad financial circumstances to take a job as a correspondence art course instructor, "De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period": http://www.freeweb.hu/tchl/salinger/blueperiod.html
I was researching the correspondence school to find out from where this technical text book came: http://books.google.com/books?id=f6lIAAAAMAAJ&dq=International+Library+o...
Love, Marriage, Social Media; Letters Written Long Hand and American Commercial Engraving
Read the article in AIGA Voice:
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/if-edith-wharton-had-facebooked
Impulse Christmas shopping ops (it takes credit cards!) from The Engraving Lady:
http://www.feltandwireshop.com/sellers/133
Some good reading and looking at engraving and other ephemera issues:
http://www.minrec.org/artwork.asp?artistid=31&cat=2&page=1
http://www.common-place.org/vol-07/no-03/rice/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bjacques/sets/72157611015946994/
The Doctrinaire Now Available Online
An infrequently occurring newsletter regarding engraving and all that pertains to social stationery.
In Issue Number Five read all about … incredible engraving from New Orleans c1862 … where do monograms come from … what to do when a friend has suffered a loss … mash notes from the real Mad Men era … what to do to get that job.
Since its inception in the Dumbo area of Brooklyn in 2003, The Doctrinaire has been produced on Mohawk Superfine paper, a paper upon which we been engraving since since 1997.
Now available on Mohawk Fine Papers curated shop, http://www.feltandwireshop.com/products/318
NANCY SHARON COLLINS, STATIONER & CENTER FOR THE LETTERING ARTS this Saturday @ New Orleans Book Fair
Including little press proofs of vintage, hand engraved dies, prints of hand-lettered alphabets and original poetry as well as demonstrations of hand engraving by the Center for the Lettering Arts at Mystic Blue Signs.
Our table will be at Lazziza, 2106 Chartres Street, from about 10:00am to 6:00pm.
Yvette Rutledge, master typographer, sign painter and, you guessed it engraver, will be demonstrating the unbelievable art of engraving with nothing but a piece of copper and a graver.
I'll have specimens from my archives and a slideshow on my computer of fantastic engraved works of type from the Harry Ransom Center, including pieces from George Bickham, the elder's "Museum of Arts" where he went wild and crazy with his art (the graver).
Hand Engraved Samples & Press Proofs in VOGUE's Blog
"Need to Know" section of Vogue magazine's online zine by Stephanie LaCava and edited by Virginia Tupker, http://www.style.com/vogue/voguedaily/2009/10/need-it-now-nancy-sharon-c....
This features re-purposed, vintage, hand engraved dies. They are goofy and some with nifty old type.
More Linotype Stories (+ a Little Wood Type)
This is the continuing story of the Linotype rep in Pineville, LA.
Last time I visited he let me photograph some of the trade manuals he has and the set of proofs he pulled from the wood type he owns. You have to scroll left over the whole image, above.
The press proofs of wood type can be viewed on Vimeo, sorry about the quality and long black screen lag at the beginning, motion is not yet my métier:
Cheese or Font? Take the Test.
If this has already been posted I apologize but this is hysterical,
test your knowledge of chees vs. font names here:
Calligraphic Engraving
This past week I spent researching calligraphic engraving at the Harry Ransom Center (HRC) at University of Texas at Austin. HRC archives hold many copybook (or copy book) specimens, three "The Universal Penman" by George Bickham, great master of this highly specialized craft in 18th-century England, one beautiful copy is in the fabulous bound Beaufoy, H.B.H., collection of English, German and Dutch writing manuals.
Love Letters: American Commercial Engraving, Monograms and Social Stationery
Please join me at University of Texas at Austin for the most recent rendition of this evolving presentation about American commercial engraving.
Tuesday September 22, 6:00pm–7:30pm
Art Building, Room ART 1.120
This lecture will include images from recent research and sources of commercial engraving and specifications for engraving types never before shown in public or discussed.
Beauty Make-Over Complete!
A silk purse...
...from a...
sow's ear.
Mission complete, the smaller of two, hundred year old engraving proofing presses have just been fully restored and completely operable by my husband and partner, John Mack Collins. This baby (pictured above) weighs-in at about two hundred pounds and when you hit the ball watch your head and digits 'cause it wields about a force of two tons.
So Noted: In search of monograms; Felt and Wire
Nancy Sharon Collins, A/K/A the engraving lady, is seeking submissions of engraved social stationery, read about it in the Mohawk paper website, http://www.feltandwire.com/?p=3723
