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William Sharpington
William Sharpington (1900–1973) was a British lettering artist who worked in sign painting and the design of monuments. In the view of John Nash and Gerald Fleuss, his workshop "produced, from the 940sto the 960s some of the most distinguished public lettering in England". Early life The son of a baker, Sharpington studied at the City and Guilds of London Art School and started his career working as an assistant in the workshop of Percy Delf Smith from about 1920 to 1935. He then set up his own practice which continued through the post-war period. At the time it was normal to use custom painted or carved lettering for large signs because of the inflexibility of printing large fonts using letterpress, before the arrival of large-size printing technologies like vinyl sign cutters and computer fonts. Career Delf Smith and his teacher Edward Johnston, influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, had established a style of fine lettering rooted in Roman square capitals which h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adelphi, London
Adelphi (; from the Greek ἀδελφοί ''adelphoi'', meaning "brothers") is a district of the City of Westminster in London.Mills, A., ''Oxford Dictionary of London Place Names'', (2001) The small district includes the streets of ''Adelphi Terrace'', ''Robert Street'' and ''John Adam Street''. Of rare use colloquially, Adelphi is grouped with Aldwych as the greater Strand district (a main street of London between the two areas and those immediately adjoining) which for many decades formed a parliamentary constituency and civil registration district. Adelphi Buildings The district is named after the Adelphi Buildings, a block of 24 unified neoclassical terrace houses that occupied the land between The Strand and the River Thames in the parish of St Martin in the Fields, which also included a headquarters building for the "Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce" (now generally known as the Royal Society of Arts). They were built between 1768 and 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Square Capitals
Roman square capitals, also called ''capitalis monumentalis'', inscriptional capitals, elegant capitals and ''capitalis quadrata'', are an ancient Roman form of writing, and the basis for modern capital letters. Square capitals are characterized by sharp, straight lines, supple curves, thick and thin strokes, angled stressing and incised serifs. When written in documents this style is known as Latin book hand. History Antiquity Square capitals were used to write inscriptions, and less often to supplement everyday handwriting as Latin book hand. For everyday writing the Romans used a current cursive hand known as Latin cursive. Notable examples of square capitals used for inscriptions are found on the Roman Pantheon, Trajan's Column, and the Arch of Titus, all in Rome. These Roman capitals are also called majuscules, as a counterpart to minuscule letters such as Merovingian and Carolingian. Before the 4th century CE, square capitals were used to write ''de luxe'' copies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freemason
Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities and clients. Modern Freemasonry broadly consists of two main recognition groups: * Regular Freemasonry insists that a volume of scripture be open in a working lodge, that every member profess belief in a Supreme Being, that no women be admitted, and that the discussion of religion and politics be banned. * Continental Freemasonry consists of the jurisdictions that have removed some, or all, of these restrictions. The basic, local organisational unit of Freemasonry is the Lodge. These private Lodges are usually supervised at the regional level (usually coterminous with a state, province, or national border) by a Grand Lodge or Grand Orient. There is no international, worldwide Grand Lodge that supervises all of Freemasonry; each Grand Lod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Renton
Michael Renton ( London, 1 January 1934 - Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ..., 15 July 2001) was a British artist who worked in wood engraving, stonecarving, sign writing and lettering. References {{DEFAULTSORT:Renton, Michael 2001 deaths 1934 births 20th-century British printmakers 20th-century British sculptors Arts and Crafts movement British architectural sculptors British letter cutters English graphic designers English illustrators English male sculptors English typographers and type designers English wood engravers Monumental masons Stone carvers 20th-century engravers Artists from London Designers from London ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British Library receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the UK. The Library is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The British Library is a major research library, with items in many languages and in many formats, both print and digital: books, manuscripts, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, videos, play-scripts, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints, drawings. The Library's collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial holdings of manuscripts and items dating as far back as 2000 BC. The library maintains a programme for content acquis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donald Jackson (calligrapher)
Donald Jackson (born 14 January 1938, Lancashire, England) is a British calligrapher, official scribe and calligrapher to the Crown Office of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Jackson is artistic director of ''The Saint John's Bible'', a hand-written and illuminated Bible commissioned by the Benedictine monastery of Saint John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota Collegeville is an unincorporated community in St. Wendel Township, Stearns County, Minnesota, United States, near St. Joseph. The community is located near the junction of Collegeville Road and Old Collegeville Road. Nearby is Saint John's Abb ..., United States of America. He is the author of ''The Story of Writing'' and ''The Calligrapher's Art''. Parker Pen Donald Jackson appears in a four-part series produced for Parker Pen, which is directed by Jeremy Bennett. The first two parts cover letterforms up to the fourteenth century, in which Jackson demonstrates the making of both reed and quill ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Art Workers' Guild
The Art Workers' Guild is an organisation established in 1884 by a group of British painters, sculptors, architects, and designers associated with the ideas of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. The guild promoted the 'unity of all the arts', denying the distinction between fine and applied art. It opposed the professionalisation of architecture – which was promoted by the Royal Institute of British Architects at this time – in the belief that this would inhibit design. In his 1998 book, ''Introduction to Victorian Style'', University of Brighton's David Crowley stated the guild was "the conscientious core of the Arts and Crafts Movement". History The guild was not the first organisation to promote the unity of the arts. Two organisations, the Fifteen and St George's Art Society had existed previously, and the guild's founders came from the St George's Art Society. They were five young architects from Norman Shaw's office: W. R. Lethaby, Edward Prior, Ernest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sign Painting
Sign painting is the craft of painting lettered signs on buildings, billboards or signboards, for promoting, announcing, or identifying products, services and events. Sign painting artisans are signwriters. History Signwriters often learned the craft through apprenticeship or trade school, although many early sign painters were self-taught. The Sign Graphics program at the Los Angeles Trade Technical College program is the last remaining sign painting program in the United States. Skillful manipulation of a lettering brush can take years to develop. In the 1980s, with the advent of computer printing on vinyl, traditional hand-lettering faced stiff competition. Interest in the craft waned during the 1980s and 90s, but hand-lettering and traditional sign painting have experienced a resurgence in popularity in recent years. The 2012 book and documentary, ''Sign Painters'' by Faythe Levine and Sam Macon, chronicle the historical changes and current state of the sign painting i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crafts Study Centre
The Crafts Study Centre is a university museum of modern crafts, located next to the entrance of the University for the Creative Arts at Farnham, Surrey. The Crafts Study Centre holds collections of 20th and 21st century British craft, primarily in the fields of calligraphy and lettering, ceramics, furniture and wood, and textiles, but also has small collections of jewellery, works of art on paper, and other miscellaneous items. The object collections are accompanied by archives such as diaries, correspondence, photographs, catalogues and working notes from crafts practitioners and crafts organisations. In some cases the Centre also holds ‘source collections’, collected from around the world by makers for their own inspiration, enjoyment and knowledge. Much of the collection has been built up from donations and bequests and includes work by Bernard Leach, Lucie Rie, and Hans Coper in ceramics, Ethel Mairet, Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher in textiles; calligraphy by Edw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serif
In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface (or serifed typeface), and a typeface that does not include them is sans-serif. Some typography sources refer to sans-serif typefaces as "grotesque" (in German, ) or "Gothic", and serif typefaces as "roman". Origins and etymology Serifs originated from the first official Greek writings on stone and in Latin alphabet with inscriptional lettering—words carved into stone in Roman antiquity. The explanation proposed by Father Edward Catich in his 1968 book ''The Origin of the Serif'' is now broadly but not universally accepted: the Roman letter outlines were first painted onto stone, and the stone carvers followed the brush marks, which flared at stroke ends and corners, creating serifs. Another theory is that serifs were devised to neate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Jenson
Nicholas Jenson (c. 1420 – 1480) was a French engraver, pioneer, printer and type designer who carried out most of his work in Venice, Italy. Jenson acted as Master of the French Royal Mint at Tours and is credited with being the creator of one of the finest early Roman typefaces. Nicholas Jenson has been something of an iconic figure among students of early printing since the nineteenth century when the artist William Morris praised the beauty and perfection of his roman font. Jenson is an important figure in the early history of printing and a pivotal force in the emergence of Venice as one of the first great centers of the printing press. History In October 1458, while acting as Master of the French Royal Mint, Jenson was sent to Mainz, by King Charles VII, to study the art of metal movable type. By the time Jenson arrived in Mainz, there were a number of established printers under which he could have been apprenticed. Jenson left Mainz in 1461. Some hypothesize that Jenso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trajan's Column
Trajan's Column ( it, Colonna Traiana, la, Columna Traiani) is a Roman triumphal column in Rome, Italy, that commemorates Roman emperor Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars. It was probably constructed under the supervision of the architect Apollodorus of Damascus at the order of the Roman Senate. It is located in Trajan's Forum, north of the Roman Forum. Completed in AD 113, the freestanding column is most famous for its spiral bas relief, which depicts the wars between the Romans and Dacians (101–102 and 105–106). Its design has inspired numerous victory columns, both ancient and modern. The structure is about in height, including its large pedestal. The shaft is made from a series of 20 colossal Carrara marble drums, each weighing about 32 tons, with a diameter of . The frieze winds around the shaft 23 times. Inside the shaft, a spiral staircase of 185 steps provides access to a viewing deck at the top. The capital block of Trajan's Column weighs 53.3 tons, and ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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