Before you even go there Hrant... think how many have confused calligraphy for type! And what is wrong with combining the two?
Even in 1975 the lines were being blurred. Had been since the 50's. Hayes, Nemoy, Chappell, Dwiggins, Zapf, Poppl, Ogg, Simons, Spemann, Abrams, Baker and I am just getting started!

Simply put, they work together and it is in this case a tag along.

Michael

Which text Hrant? The Art of the Scribe is fairly standard for the times.

Michael

> The Art of the Scribe is fairly standard for the times.

OK.

And if you (or another proficient calligrapher) were to pen that,
could you match it exactly, without doing anything funny?

hhp

Most of us in our sleep. A bit of touch up would help to keep it clean. Manipulation as well as a 45 degree angle are pretty standard. I do not see anything dramatic here.

If you are referring to the variation of line weight I would imagine that is a matter of cut, "stat it down in size" and paste.

Michael

Verticality?

Hmmm, I'm seeing a faint light, people... Keep it up!

hhp

Possibly. But if it's nothing then I'd still like to find that out.

Anyway if you find more energy tomorrow please come back!
I might very well downgrade the burrito to a simple tossed salad.

hhp

Are you referring to the fact that almost every word seems as if it is a different size? The irony being that writing produced by "a scribe" would not be multiple sizes in a single grouping of text?

The size of the "of"'s "f" does not look like is came from the same size text as the "t" in the "the". Also, I'm noticing a slight horizontal scale in the "the"'s "e". Am i grasping too?

A somewhat pointless exercise that will lead to nothing much. What you have done is stirred the calligraphers out of a slumber, which is a good thing as they have been too silent for too long.
Perhaps the calligraphers & lettering artists here should start similar threads about the large proportion of truly ugly type and appalling logo designs that get so much endearing praise by so many. But that too although even more 'funny', would not be overly productive either.

Graham, you're saying this is ugly? Because I actually
don't think so. But I would very much like to hear why
you think it is - it might help solve this riddle.

> Perhaps the calligraphers & lettering artists here should start
> similar threads about the large proportion of truly ugly type and
> appalling logo designs that get so much endearing praise by so many.

That would actually be more suitable to Typophile than this
thread, since that's more about type than this is. Go for it.

Tiffany, in which axis?

hhp

I think the general flow of the text is relatively nice though dated looking. Squared turns like that were common back then, but not terribly graceful. The big loops created for encapsulating small text are very awkward to my eye though and so do not enhance the piece

What John said. It does look skewed and vertically squooshed a bit too.

>Graham, you’re saying this is ugly? Because I actually
>don’t think so. But I would very much like to hear why
>you think it is - it might help solve this riddle.

My reference to ugly was directed elsewhere-another riddle to solve :)
This piece is very much of its day and it would have been well received within the general calligraphic community of the time.
By today's standards it is poor. Its not really fair to pick on the work of a fellow scribe who can't defend him/herself. But it is not what I would have done in 1975, and it certainly is nothing like what I would do today.

I am not sure what you have in mind nor what point you are trying to make with this. There is nothing overtly strange to it that I can see. My take of the "The Art of the Scribe" is that the pen angle is all wrong from the start and is not correct at any point. It's too small to tell and I would need a much closer look, but if the entire poster is calligraphy as you say, then it does not look to be written entirely by the same hand-can't be sure of this from the jpg.

It's the cross bar of the A. It's not really chirographic.

In the crossbar of the A the pen angle is flattened as it is moving horizontally. That's more difficult than doing it vertically which is probably why the top side of that stroke is not as steady looking as the bottom. It is one of the more awkward and inconsistent parts of the design. Most pen strokes are either vertical or horizontal, but the A crossbar, Cap T and rt horizontals deviate from this.

I'm still a bit puzzled here expecting that there would be some kind of real mystery revealed. It seems to be just minor oddities in a piece of lettering that was manipulated in whatever means the artist had available at the time.

Given the period, the lettering might have been cut out of rubilith. The wobble in the outside of the big flourish off the h has that look about it

I don't know whether this has been mentioned before, but the words "Art" and "Scribe" seem to be written with a broader pen than the rest. Or are they geometrically enlarged?

Nick, that "serif" on the T is simply the result of lifting the nib on one side at the end of a stroke. This makes the stroke get very thin towards the end.
Arthur Baker was a master at this, in some of his works you can find hardly any stroke that is written without lifting the nib. Also, some broken scripts show features based on this principle.

Bingo.

More soon.

hhp

I wish I could say AHAAA! but get serious! There are not enough visual clues in this piece to indicate it was done by a southpaw! So you read it was written by a southpaw and backseat drove from there? Wish I could support your research paper, sorry!

Was it done by Larry Brady?

Edit: Oh and Tim... Visigoth employed the same pen lifts that any normal calligrapher would employ in the creation of an italic of this nature.

Michael

No!! Not left handed! That is indeed very funny. I know that all left handers are very odd, but I never knew being left handed smelt funny. I see that there is more to reveal, can't wait.

Having just come across this right now, my first thought was 'it was done by a lefty'. Maybe because I'm left handed? Who knows…

Hey I won the quiz! So here's a new one:
Anything odd here?

It's the cover title of a book by Bror Zachrisson.

Yep, here:

http://typophile.com/node/48885

How do you get left handed?