About me
Through this blog I hope to share my enthusiasm and passion for anything to do with letters, alphabets, typography, calligraphy, graffiti even. Let’s have some fun!
I live in Australia (I was born in London, UK and lived there until 2004) and will share my collection of printing ephemera and lettering with you. I don’t know where this adventure will take us but it will be interesting.
Me? I have been doing and collecting typography since I was a teenager.
Although I studied archaeology and anthropology at university (and have had a career as a journalist) I was fascinated by lettering and typography from the age of 11. I started printing with a table top Adana press before moving to larger machinery, including a Monotype keyboard and caster and Western proofing press, producing limited edition books.
Discovering the type designs of Eric Gill led me to find out more about his life, which culminated in printing a special edition of one of Gill’s booklets to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his death in 1990. (On my current opinion of Gill see here.)
I studied informally with Richard Kindersley, son of David Kindersley who was a pupil of Gill, and John Skelton, who was Gill’s nephew. I also took calligraphy lessons but soon decided I was more comfortable with a chisel in my hand than a pen.
I turned to letter carving and design in the early 1990s, and also began to experiment with sculptural pieces that include a textual element.
I was elected a Member of the International Society of Typographic Designers (MISTD) in 2004.
Please browse the blog at your leisure – it is fairly random but, I hope, useful if not also entertaining.
I was surfing and found your site by accident. I teach adults with asd (autism) and year or two back I had a young man who wanted to ‘do’ lettering and sign board making. He had a natural talent and his freehand rendering in a sketch book of the famous inscription on Trajan’s column in the V&A was very encouraging. But do you know I could not for the life of me find a course for him? Art schools apparently no longer run them and all I could find were courses on calligraphy which are of course not the same thing. I eventually found a place where he could at least learn something but it wasn’t a great success for various reasons. I’ll post your site off to my old lettering teacher now retired and living in Suffolk, as soon as I hear she’s on line. Very interesting posts, I could sit up all night and read them, well done. *****
Just wanted to say Hi and say how much I liked what I have seen on your website and wished I had time to read more. Eric Gill was my grandmother’s brother (she was Angela, his youngest sister – and yes, he did have sex with her) and I have always had an interest in Gill. I am currently writing an assignment for a part-time MA I am doing in “Biography Writing” at UEA’s Creative Writing Department on Gill Sans and its development and uses. I read the piece on John Skelton, my uncle who was very close to my father (his elder brother Kenneth) and knew him well and of course am still in touch with his wife, Myrtle, and his children, Helen-Mary (who still does lettering in John’s old studio) and Jonathan. His youngest child, Rebecca, sadly died at only 32 (not 100% sure of that age, but it is about right).
Maybe when I have finished my assignment I will have more time to erad your site.
Hi Stephen – so pleased you have made contact. I knew John a little and did a course at his house. I’d be very interested in hearing more about your memories etc. Good luck with the course – be keen to read it when it’s finished. Kind regards John
Dear John,
I think I mentioned that I will be studying at the John Stevens Shop in Newport, Rhode Island, for six weeks this spring. Well, I’ve decided to blog about it. Here’s the link for your amusement:
sixweeksjss.blogspot.com
Thanks for having a look and for all the good work on yours.
Cheers,
Jesse
Terrific Jesse – look forward to seeing more….
I am a letter cutter in Oxfordshire and I share your enthusiasm for typography and beautiful lettering in stone. I grew up on the floor of the Whittington Press where my mother works as a wood engraver. Please share an excellent article which has been recently featured on I Love Typography This is the link: http://ilovetypography.com/2012/03/09/letters-stone-interview-fergus-wessel/
You might also find my website interesting and I should be very pleased if you include a link to my website in your blogroll
http://www.stoneletters.com
Looking forward to seeing more of your interesting entries.
Best wishes
Fergus Wessel
Hi John,
Very interesting site, I came across it by accident, a happy accident. I am in the process of restoring a Monotype Composition Caster and would welcome contact with you about these machines and their operation. I am in South Australia, just south of Adelaide where I am setting up a letterpress studio and type foundry (I also have an Intertype and a couple of Elrods.
All the best.
Ron
Macdonald Gill was the YOUNGER brother of Eric Gill. Macdonald was responsible for the lettering on Sir Edwin Lutyens’s great Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme inaugurated in 1932. The V & A museum has a clock dated 1930 with engraving by Macdonald.
Sorry, Can’t seem to find your name anywhere and I can’t decipher the two words on the email bit. I have been interested in lettering since childhood and more recently have made an adaptation of a mediaeval manuscript . I ‘designed’a font using my lettering based on the foundational hand. I am fascinated by the TrajanColumn inscription and wondered where I could acquire a plaster cast of just one of the letters – S if possible. Any ideas ?
Regards
Karl Donnelly
Thanks for the mail Karl. Not sure where you can get a plaster cast from but you should have a look at this book:
The Origin of the Serif by Edward Catich, ISBN 0-9629740-2-1
Good luck.
John Pitt
Thanks for the mention of my old man, Harry.
Harry was a big influence in my life, both typographic (concrete poetry) and general. So nice to hear from you and trust you are well. Kind regards.