font design – Teucer Wilson's blog

January 31, 2019January 31, 2019

Recent work in Aldborough

We installed a stone in Aldborough the other day, and it was a chance to see some of my previous commissions there, some of which are shown below. They vary considerably in style, design and materials. I have used all my own fonts on these, hand drawn and hand carved. I hope you like them, the older stones are starting to weather nicely now.

aldblog1 — Moleanos limestone from Portugal

The stone above was a memorial to a friend who ran Aldborough antique shop. The stone has references to some of his furniture and the bell that was attached to his door and rang upon entry. I miss Terry, he was a real character. He was always giving things to my kids…..

Here are a few more

matts weatherd copy.jpg — Crossland Hill York stone

Above is a York stone memorial showing the front and back of the stone. Marianne was a Moari, and the symbolism on the stone reflects her ancestry. The raised carving of the Koru on the front was copied from a bone pendant she wore and the fern carving on the back symbolises new life, growth, strength and peace.

kleissner22012 — Woodkirk stone, from Yorkshire

aldblog3 — Woodkirk stone, from Yorkshire

This stone above was to a local woman of German descent, and the design and lettering was created to give a Germanic feel to the stone. I designed and drew these letters specifically for this commission. It’s weathering beautifully.

aldblog8 — Woodkirk stone, from Yorkshire

aldblog9 — Woodkirk stone, from Yorkshire

elainecookdet2copy — detail from the Cook memorial above

denhamcrossdetailcopy — detail from the Denham memorial above

Above are two more York stone memorials, one featuring a lily carving and another an Ethiopian cross.

This wonderful piece of stone was one I came across in a quarry in Wales. I knew Alan, he was a lovely lad, a keen fisherman. The stripes made me think of water.

Above, another piece of York stone, carved on both sides as you can see. Words by Mother Julian of Norwich adorn the back with an early Christian inspired depiction of incised doves on the back, complimenting the relief carvings on the front.

pennycowparsley — detail from Penny’s stone

20190128_141139 — detail from Penny’s stone

This one is Welsh slate. Penny was my friend and neighbour and was very into her flowers. She was a lovely woman, missed by many. Working with slate gives a very different effect, it’s more akin to illustration than sculpture. The sharpness of the lettering and level of detail that can be achieved in slate is very challenging and rewarding.

aldblog13 — Nabresina limestone from Croatia/Italy border

This last image shows a cross made using Nabresina limestone. I quite like the simplicity of this, and the subtle bluey colour of the paint.

August 3, 2017

Find me @ London Design Fair

London design fair coming up, it’d be nice to see you there
http://www.londondesignfair.couk/visit

LDFcollage

May 28, 2016

TEXTure show update

Our show texture opened on Friday evening and we’re really pleased with the reaction we’ve had. Lovely feedback, interesting conversations and some sales. We look forward to seeing people there. Here are a few pictures:

May 23, 2016May 23, 2016

TEXTure show final preparations

TEXTure opens on Friday and we’re looking forward to setting up and seeing it all in situ. There will be around forty pieces in the show, some simple sculptural forms and some large and detailed pieces. Materials in the show include slate, limestone, sandstone, rock crystal, glass, resin and metal. Here’s the latest poster and the launch invitation, please come along at some point if you can.

e poster4 e launch invite copy

December 28, 2015

Gunton Arms photos

here are a few more pictures of the sign, I drove past the other day and the light was nice. The brackets are rusting nicely now too……

December 15, 2015December 15, 2015

The Gunton Arms – cast iron signage

gunton progress1

One of the most exciting projects I have been working on recently is a sign for The Gunton Arms Pub here in north Norfolk. It’s a great pub with a fascinating collection of art both on the walls and in the grounds. I have been asked to design and produce a sign to be placed between the car park and the pub. After discussing various options and designs we decided that a cast iron frieze would work really well. This will be installed this Thursday. My approach to designing this was to think about something that would be visually simple, legible, yet not just letters plonked along a line, using ancient techniques but with a modern twist in the letterforms and the way they merge with the framing. My designs:

inner sign proposal in cast iron — measurements

The font is basically adapted from one of my own sans-serif true-type fonts but then the whole design was digitised (converted to paths) and manipulated to make the letters work with the curved shapes. When lettering is set on a curve it appears to be distorted and therefore it is necessary to intentionally distort the shapes to make the whole design and the spacing look right. The process of working with the paths and creating a satisfying design was very enjoyable. I was thinking very much about the space in between the letters, almost more than the letters in a way. The intention was both to make a nice series of negative spaces and also make the letters blend and flow nicely out of the curved ‘tramlines’ that contain them. Also I was really thinking about working with iron, and its unique properties and also the weight. The frieze weighs approximately 80kg.

This is a little snapshot of how the paths are created, with a series of control points each of which has ‘handles’ that can be moved individually to control the curves. This is a really time consuming process and I always aim to have as few of these control points as possible in a search for clean lines and purity!

paths

Two reclaimed cast iron posts have been installed and I have been working on the pattern making and organising the casting and installation on this project, including designing brackets. The pattern was made in MDF from my vector file, then this was used by the foundry to make moulds. This is sand casting, and I am lucky that there is a fantastic foundry not too far from me, East Coast Casting. They kindly photographed the process for me, and there’s a couple of videos below too. Basically, and I am simplifying this description, the pattern is set into a sandy-resin mix and when this sets the pattern is taken out creating a void that is then filled with molten iron. We chose SG iron as it is a little bit easier to work with. It contains graphite, and is easier to drill and weld. It is also more flexible and should not crack under pressure. See below. I’ll put more pictures up later when the sign is installed.

casting1 casting5 casting8 casting9 casting10

here’s a picture of the finished piece, which will rust naturally over time

gunton progress4

gunton progress3

more to follow when the job’s done!

September 6, 2011September 8, 2011

Vale of Belvoir Angels

I recently travelled through Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire on my way back to Norfolk from Worcestershire and took the opportunity to visit the Vale of Belvoir (pronounced beaver). I have known for years that there were many slate memorials in the East Midlands and recently became interested (if not obsessed) with them, especially those from the late 17th and early 18th century. There are many ornate and beautifully carved examples and due to the longevity of slate they are amazingly well preserved.

There are bascially two different kinds to my eye, some more crudely carved and “naive” in appearance, and others that are beautifully executed and show the carver/designer’s knowledge of different typefaces, and the masons use of type sample books. I think both these kinds are beautiful but I am more drawn to the cruder ones which include angel carvings known as “The Vale of Belvoir Angels”. There’s a great book studying these memorials written by Pauline and Bernard Heathcote (available at amazon). It lists the memorials and locations and has many photographs.

What I find particularly interesting is that these stones were not set out or drawn up before the carver started work and you can see this by the way some words are truncated or split and some letters carved really small above the line to fit in. What seems really odd to me is that some of the lettering is raised and therefore the background is being carved away leaving them proud, and even the carving of these was just started on the left hand edge and made to fit, one way or another. It is worth having a close look at some of these. Below is a detail from one.

raised lettering detail — click to enlarge

I have uploaded some more pictures on my flickr pages. Click here to see them.

June 17, 2011June 18, 2011

Eyam – layout issues, or should that be layou tissues

Following on from my last blog regarding letter spacing, design and layout on old memorials, I thought it worth adding this image of another stone in Eyam, there seems to be no regard for where the words fall whatsoever, with both surnames and first names being split. Surely this means the “designer” worked directly with the chisel, forming the letters as he went. I can’t imagine showing a design for this stone to one of my clients and getting the go-ahead. This is perhaps a shame, as I’d really enjoy the opportunity to make a memorial in this way, the sense of freedom would be refreshing, if a little unnerving!

If you look closely you’ll see that the spacing in general is really poor, for example the HE space right at the beginning of the inscription is very wide and yet the word spacing is relatively very tight for example: here/lies the/body who/died. But despite all this, or maybe because of all this, I like it.
The re’sno way I couldg et a way with it thou gh.

June 14, 2011June 17, 2011

Derbyshire treasure

I recently spent a few days away with the family in Derbyshire, near Cressbrook Dale. As well as the amazing landscape I took great pleasure in studying the limestone there. If you look closely the rocks, paths and even the footpath stones set into the walls are full of fossils. One day we took a walk on the White Peak through Sheldon. I knew there would be fossils as I’d seen and bought some small pieces from Lowes Marble Works in Middleton, near Wirskworth some years back. See below.

The limestone there is a carboniferous limestone. There is also sandstone and millstone grit in Derbyshire. On this walk I spotted these slate memorials which were obviously to a very important family with the surname Sheldon. The letter-carving is impressive. There seems to have been some very high quality slate carving through the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire/Newark area in the 18th and 19th centuries, I’ve seen numerous examples.

January 24, 2011February 28, 2011

German lettering design

Some wonderful German lettering.

The first image here shows the lettering produced by the workshop of Sepp Jacob in Germany. The work he produced was very sculptural and direct and a wonderful blend of good strong lettering and an understanding of materials. This piece reminds me of the German font Neuland which was designed by Rudolf Koch.

Neuland is based on the handwriting of Rudolf Koch (as are all of his typefaces). Its simplicity and unusual shapes derive from the difficult and demanding art of punchcutting. In fact, it may be the only typeface designed by actually cutting the punches; Koch made no preliminary drawings, it is almost as though the punches themselves were sculpted, and these were then used in casting the type itself. Neuland was designed in 1923 and it became enormously popular as an advertising typeface. It is a sans serif, all-capital design with angular features, obliqued strokes and a slight concavity to some of the vertical strokes. Used with restraint, it can lend power and persuasion to display work, as it did when forming the basis for titles appearing in the film Jurassic Park.

Optima is another wonderful example of German lettering design. It was designed by Hermann Zapf, Contemporary German calligrapher, teacher, book designer and one of the 20th century’s most significant type designers. In the mid 1930’s Zapf studied the writing manuals of Rudolf Koch and Edward Johnston and taught himself. Zapf has designed some of the 20th century’s most important fonts, including Palatino and Optima, and some of my other favourites such as Michaelangelo, Sistina, and the wonderfully calligraphic Zapfino.