Friday 1 March 2013

Concorde

I was just looking through some of my birthday card designs and I found this classic from my partner Julian's 48th birthday.


I had been sorting out my stamp and envelop collection and I spotted the Concorde stamps. It was a couple of years after Concorde stopped flying in May 2003, after 27 years of commercial flights. 

As Julian used to love looking up at Concorde each day when we first moved to Brixton, (we were in the flight path), I thought he would like the illustration.

The stamp I used was the 9d and was designed by David Gentleman. I found quite an interesting blog designKULTUR on this and other Concorde stamps.  

Wednesday 27 February 2013

My Type Face Annie Rexy

When I was a student at the London College of Printing, I started to design a typeface. It was called Annie Rexy. I wanted to make it all bent and crooked like thin, almost broken bones but, the tutor a famous typographer called Frederick Lambert (who's most popular font was probably Compacta), told me I had to design the straight version first. I was quite scared of Fred and he was such a pro, I did exactly as I was told.


Annie Rexy Straight Typeface by Emma Calder 


Each letter was drawn with a 2H pencil, was 4 inches high and drawn on tracing paper, with graph paper underneath, Fred did not allow me to use a compass or a ruler. I would show Fred a letter approximately once a month and he would tell me how to improve it. Sadly I never finished the typeface before finishing the course, although a couple of years ago, almost 30 years since the original design commenced in 1979,  I did do a bit more work on it. Fred had warned me that a decent typeface could take a life time. 

Recently I was asked by an architectural practice, if they could use the typeface for a job involving the names of some clients being carved into the edge of a wooden door. It was the extreme thinness that had attracted them. I will add a link to the door once it is finished.





As I had the work on the computer and it was my daughters birthday, I thought I would make her a card using the typeface. I was messing around trying out the original idea of the skinny, bent bone, lettering and I discovered a filter tool in Photoshop which I had never tried before. Here is the result. 
Birthday Card for Coco
I still need to finish the typeface though!