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Working
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Working
from scanned art
Home
page
TYPE
DESIGN
Design
notes
Basics
Decisions
Modules
Bold
Italic
Scans
Caps
one
Serifs
Caps
two
Letter
O
Curves
Letter
S
Caps
three
Lower
case
l-group
a-group
b-group
o-group
1
o-group
2
o-group
3
x-group
Spacing
Elbow
grease
Glossary
Some
people think working from historical sources is particularly
easy. The work has already done by somebody else, they say;
all you do is lay down Bézier curves. They should try
it themselves.
Our
starting point is a sixteenth-century handwriting manual,
La Operina. It was written out by Ludouico Vicentino
degli Arrighi, and printed from woodcuts by Ugo da Carpi.
And it was the starting point for the BriemOperina
typeface family.
The
upright Renaissance capitals resemble Roman inscriptions.
The book also has many decorative variants that we
won’t go into.
The lower
case is an example of late humanist
cursive.
This line
has the letter m in abundance. It was used to demonstate the
right texture for the lower-case
letters.
Arrighi’s
writing is a good starting point, but it needs
work.
The first
step in understanding it is to write it with a broad-nib
pen. My two favorite books about italic are Scribes and
Sources by A.S. Osley and The First Writing Book
by John Howard Benson. Both are out of print, but easily
borrowed on an inter-library
loan.
I grouped
the letters the way I like to work. You may well prefer a
different arrangement.
