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