The Art of Lettering: A Text and Reference Book of Alphabets and Applied Lettering
Carl Lars Svensen's textbook, published by D. Van Nostrand in New York in 1924, teaches lettering as a learnable craft in five chapters built around 96 full-page plates.
What it is
Carl Lars Svensen's textbook, published by D. Van Nostrand in New York in 1924, teaches lettering as a learnable craft in five chapters built around 96 full-page plates. Chapter I traces the alphabet from Egyptian picture writing to the Roman capital, with the Trajan Column inscription as the model. Chapter II covers tools, guide lines, the named parts of a letter, and spacing: letters placed at equal distances look unequal, so each word has to be designed. Chapter III deals with pens, from Gillott's fine quill to broad nibs, with graded practice strokes. Chapter IV collects Roman, Gothic, uncial, italic, poster and type alphabets, from Jenson and Dürer to Caslon and Auriol. Chapter V shows credited work in use: advertisements, travel folders, posters by Sam H. Harris and Ludwig Hohlwein, title pages, letterheads, monograms and carved tablets.
Why read it now
Read it for Chapters II and V; the pens and historical alphabets are for specialists. Three ideas hold. Optical spacing: equal gaps look unequal, which is still why a logo or a large headline needs manual kerning after the software has set it. Placement by eye: a block of text looks centred only when it sits slightly above the true centre, with the widest margin at the bottom. And the point, quoted from John Coolidge, that the letterform sends a message apart from the copy, a heavy face for trucks and a formal roman for banks. Later research on typeface personality agrees that readers attach traits to type and that type which fits the product can lift choice, but Coolidge's national temperaments (light French script, stolid German black letter) are stereotype, not evidence. What has dated: hand lettering as the default, and the claim that it reads better than type. Use: before choosing a brand or campaign typeface in Arabic or English, write the one trait it must signal, set the name in three candidates, and ask ten customers which one fits that trait.
Passages worth keeping
The shapes of the letters are such that if they are placed equal distances apart they will appear unequally spaced.
أشكال الحروف مختلفة، فإذا وُضعت على مسافات متساوية بالقياس بدت للعين غير متساوية، ولذلك تُضبط المسافات بالنظر.
They have found that the manner in which an advertisement is presented makes an impression on the mentality of the reader, separate and apart from the copy which the advertisement includes.
طريقة عرض الإعلان وشكل حروفه تترك أثرًا في ذهن القارئ مستقلًا عن مضمون النص نفسه.
This letter has been used to great advantage in bank advertising to convey the idea of reliability.
الحرف الرصين الهادئ استُخدم في إعلانات البنوك لأنه يوحي بالثقة والثبات قبل أن يقرأ أحد النص.
Since the purpose of a poster is to present a message in a minimum of time and with a maximum of effect, it must necessarily be rather simple, brief, and legible.
الملصق يُقرأ في لحظة، فلا بد أن يكون بسيطًا وقصيرًا وواضحًا حتى يوصل رسالته بأقل وقت وأكبر أثر.
A letterhead should be simple and easily read, especially the name and address.
ترويسة الرسائل يجب أن تكون بسيطة وسهلة القراءة، وأوضح ما فيها الاسم والعنوان، وكل ما عداهما يأتي بعدهما.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
Read the original archive.org
If this library is useful, leave an email
We send new patterns, ads, and notes when we add them. Name and phone are optional.
You are on the list
We will write when we add more library material.