© Iskra Johnson, photography, archival print
A crossover piece from my current fine art porfolio of work about the beauty and mystery of construction sites. Wabi-Sabi: an aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete."
When I was just beginning my career in letterforms I had the great good fortune to study with Bettye Lou Bennett at Haystack, Cannon Beach. She was a teacher of uncommon rigor and caring, and she continually inspired me to reach beyond what I thought were my limits. During a slideshow of contemporary calligraphy she made a comment that has never left my mind. After a long beat in which we regarded an example of calligraphy on the screen she said only, "This piece could have benefitted from some judicial retouching."
Ouf, I thought, scalding! What exactly is judicial retouching? And how can I avoid ever being held up as a similar example? At that point I was simply learning how to hold an edged pen, dip it in ink, and make a simple perfect italic letter in the tradition of Lloyd Reynolds and the long lineage of Arrighi. I had not yet moved into lettering design for reproduction. I knew nothing about typography, and operated on the assumption, common then, that "pure" calligraphy could only be made in one fell swoop and that if you fussed with it afterwards the Lords of the Pen would come down from that clear crystal inkwell in which they lived and smite you.
I went on to realize that lettering for reproduction must inevitably be a dialogue between the aesthetics of fonts and the airy and sometimes reckless dance of the pen. Recently, in organizing archives for a book jackets portfolio, I came across this project for Pocket Books, which illustrates beautifully the path from pure calligraphy to work for reproduction — and calligraphy's connection to typography.
To write the name of Audrey Hepburn is a dream assignment. The title needed to express elegance, divadom, perfection, beauty, and reflect some history of her era by referencing the typefaces of her time. Here is the initial page exploring her name with various brushes and pens:
Calligraphic sketches in pointed brush and edged pen
We went to final art on the second one and the publisher then decided to use only her last name.
This is an unretouched scan of edged pen calligraphy on Crane's Crest.
The calligraphy shows that lovely lyrical "ribbon" that happens when a true edged pen turns in space–but the work would never survive reduction at small size in a catalog, or read from a distance. And if you look closely you see the roughness of the paper. It can be hair-raising to go into a piece like this, that is "pure" and walk that balance between calligraphic beauty and typographic strength. This was done long before bezier curves and Photoshop, and I used French Curves, a three ott rapidograph and photostat paper to ink this final version:
Formal typographic calligraphy
I would have loved to keep the original H, but it was decreed by marketing that it was "hard to read"– three words that may be the least favorite in the English language to a calligrapher's ears. This was before the proliferation of script fonts, and my primary reference was the dreaded "Park Avenue," along with the more respectable "Coronet," "Ariston," "Amazone," and "Bernhard Cursive" from my much-loved and dog-eared Ryder Display book.
Audrey, wherever you are, I hope you like this. It was lovely to be you, and to wear your earrings for a day.
I think the kind of illustration I like to do most is simple iconic ink imagery. One of my favorite projects of this kind was a set of illustrations for the annual report for a software company. They wanted something very different and expressive that would play against the stereotype of what a software company is supposed to be. The illustrations were printed full bleed on one side of the page, and typogaphy, printed on vellum, followed. When the pages turned it created a lovely transparent effect. This kind of work looks very simple when it is seen in print–but like a perfect letter in a font, each image goes through many refinements before it meets the criteria of the perfect blend of realism, abstraction, and iconic presence.
Iconic ink illustrations for TCDI corporation, ©Iskra Johnson
I had the opportunity to work on a wonderful project for the Seattle Study Club this summer. The brochure for their annual symposium was composed primarily of words; it featured one person talking, with no photographs or color. The designer came to me for handwriting to call out highlights in the text. I developed a style of quirky calligraphy done with a ruling pen. My goal: to enliven the copy and bring the subject matter, of inquiry, study and conversation, to life. In this era of font proliferation my invisible goal behind the scenes was to "not look like a font." I love it when a client wants custom work to actually look like custom work and not like something that already exists!
The symposium gala takes place at Ngala, a wild-life preserve that features a much-beloved giraffe named Coulter, and he appears towards the end of the brochure. It was his spirit that animated the handwriting. You can see the complete brochure here. I have pulled out representative pages, some in layout and some cropped, so you can see how the custom lettering design works with and without type in the actual layout. Click on the individual pages to see them larger.
Custom handwriting and calligraphic illustration ©Iskra Design
From Monica Cavagnaro, Chalk calligraphy outside Seattle's Volunteer Park Asian Art Musem
I would love to know who did this. So nice to see formal lettering applied in every day life. Did they copy from a book? Was this done by a Real Calligrapher? Chalk writing is unforgiving, very hard to erase on concrete. Three cheers for Nikki!
Designer, calligrapher, lettering artist. Read more 