black letter calligraphy font old english font

They can be ornate and almost abstract when used alone.

Textura and Fraktur – two widespread styles of blackletter – give me a good base to experiment with personal styles.” Blackletter capitals have a wider range than roman capitals in terms of the diversity of forms they can take. What is blackletter’s appeal? According to Barcellona, “roman capitals written with a flat brush are the most difficult letters to do. But blackletter today is an area of experimentation and expression for more than just calligraphers. This is true both for experienced practitioners, like John Stevens and Julian Waters, as well for their younger colleagues, like Giuseppe Salerno and Barcellona, who is probably the calligrapher to have made the most expressive uses of blackletter in the past decade. Since blackletter predates the invention of European printing, it is not surprising that blackletter is still popular with calligraphers and letterers. “I was attracted by the strength of gothic letterforms because of their expressive contrast.” “The first time I understood the potential of blackletter was when I was a graffiti writer,” he says. Hailing from Milan, Barcellona embraces a variety of writing styles in his calligraphic practice, but the “love” he is talking about is not roman or italic letterforms, but blackletter.

“It was my first love,” Luca Barcellona says. Head over to the podcast’s website to listen to that great half hour of programming! /episode/fraktur/ Blackletter and calligraphy today Then you are in luck! Together with Peter Dörfell, Florian Hardwig, Susan Reed, and Hanno Blohm, I was one of the people that Kevin Caners interviewed for a 99% Invisible podcast episode on blackletter. So if you like what you read here, go check that out! Would you rather listen to a podcast than read an article? I took some of the text below from a recent article I wrote for Communication Arts. Looking for further information regarding blackletter type, its history and development, as well as its current use? Below is some information, paired with a list of links, which I assembled to try and help designers navigate through the topic.

Black letter calligraphy font old english font