Letterforms can be art. When you pay attention to the shape of the letters - as if they were images - you can tuck them into one another and create interesting design elements. Notice the elongated tail on this Vintage Victorian “Q” and how it points your eye toward the word “Please”.
Graphic designers use these “personality traits” of letters to create logos and headlines that are actually well-balanced works of art.
There have been a couple of rubber stamp typesetting sets manufactured in the distant past and you may remember having one as a child. But they were based on the idea of the letters fitting in straight line slots on a block.
Red Letters allow you to put the words together with any kind of baseline - as in the dancing “party” look on this card - and you can proof the look before committing to it.
Taking this concept a little further, it is possible to actually illustrate the idea of the words by the placement of the letters, as Sue has done here.
Lots of possibilities come to mind: Ups and Downs, Running in Circles, Wild and Crazy, the Spin that I’m In, etc. You can picture how these sayings could be visually typeset, right?
This is a technique that has often been used in graphic design and advertising where type plays a major role in illustration. It is also really appropriate in the book arts and visual journaling where the “visual” element is meant to enhance and illustrate the writing or the theme of the page.
This card demonstrates a collagraph embossing technique of Sue’s in which she uses a raised image master mold and wet handmade paper. I am working on convincing her to do an article on the particulars.
The finished embossing was painted with some of the same techniques as Sue demonstrated in the Stone Books article in Volume 3 of Now What?
