Hand Engraved Social Stationery Article on Ephemera Site

Great article about what is engraving for the American social stationery trade on American Ephemera Society website:

http://www.ephemerasociety.org/articles/collins.html

New Year’s Hangover Special: Throw a Party!

Invite your nearest and dearest friends over for some post-holiday libations. Make the invitation the right way with this set of 4 hand engraved fold-over Cocktail cards on white 100% cotton rag stock, 3.5″ X just under 5″. $12.50 plus postage.

4 matching envelopes included.

Visit the engraving lady’s store, Petite Suite, at Felt & Wire for details.

Odd-Ball Short Story

While researching the International Correspondence School recently, I was reminded of the odd-ball J.D. Salinger short story about a young man reduced by sad financial circumstances to take a job as a correspondence art course instructor, De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period.

I was researching the correspondence school to find out from where this technical text book came.

There’s a great article about correspondence art schools by Steve Heller in the 12.15.09 Design Observer.

Amazing Engraving

We just acquired P.J. Pound’s The Drawing Room Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages, 1859, second volume. If you want to see amazing engraving, Pound’s the guy. You can view an example of it, super close-up which shows the various lines, dots and dashes used to illustrate light/shadow/modeling here.

Love, Marriage, Social Networking; Hand Writing Letters and American Commercial Engraving

Read the article in AIGA Voice:

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/if-edith-wharton-had-facebooked

Impulse Christmas shopping ops (it takes credit cards!) from The Engraving Lady:

http://www.feltandwireshop.com/sellers/133

Some good reading and looking at engraving and other ephemera issues:

http://www.minrec.org/artwork.asp?artistid=31&cat=2&page=1

http://www.common-place.org/vol-07/no-03/rice/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bjacques/sets/72157611015946994/

http://columbus.gl.iit.edu/

Hand Engraved Samples & Press Proofs in VOGUE’s Blog

“Need to Know” section of Vogue magazine’s online zine by Stephanie LaCava and edited by Virginia Tupker.

This features re-purposed, vintage, hand engraved dies. They are goofy and some with nifty old type. http://petitesuite.wordpress.com./

Calligraphic Engraving

This past week I spent researching calligraphic engraving at the Harry Ransom Center (HRC) at University of Texas at Austin. HRC archives hold many copybook (or copy book) specimens, three “The Universal Penman” by George Bickham, great master of this highly specialized craft in 18th-century England, one beautiful copy is in the fabulous bound Beaufoy, H.B.H., collection of English, German and Dutch writing manuals.

I examined over 1,460 individual engraved plates either bound or tipped-in to these books or the Beaufoy collection.  There are exquisite examples of engraved calligraphy but of greater interest to me was being able to look at the structure of engraved letter forms.  I was able to bring with me, and use, the 3X photographic loop, with excellent optics, so was able to see some great detail.

I will be writing my observations here in my blog.  Meanwhile, anyone interested in the genre can go to this bibliography about origins of letter forms including writing and copy books:

http://ihl.enssib.fr/siteihl.php?page=45&aflng=fr.

Also, a reasonable copy, offset not engraved, of Bickham’s “Universal Penman” can be bought as a Dover edition for fairly cheap.

My favorite specimen was a complete book by Snell, about 4-5 characters per page, 13 plates in all illustrating the entire alphabet.  At the end of which (and I could not tell if it is part of the Snell book or a random, tipped-in item) was a grid comparing each character in the alphabet for Roman, Italick [sic], two kinds of script, “secretary”, “church”, engrossing and several other forms of types.

I will post pictures in the coming weeks, it takes four to six (weeks) for the HRC to process orders for scanning copies.

Love Letters: American Commercial Engraving, Monograms and Social Stationery

Please join me at University of Texas at Austin for the most recent rendition of this evolving presentation about American commercial engraving.

Tuesday September 22

6:00pm–7:30pm

Art Building, Room ART 1.120

This lecture will include images from recent research and sources of commercial engraving and specifications for engraving types never before shown in public or discussed.

http://aigaaustin.org/events/2009/09/detail/414/

Beauty Make-Over Complete!

A Silk Purse…

…From A…

Sow’s Ear.

Mission complete, the smaller of two, hundred year old engraving proofing presses have just been fully restored and completely operable by my husband and partner, John Mack Collins.  This baby (pictured above) weighs-in at about two hundred pounds and when you hit the ball watch your head and digits ’cause it wields about a force of two tons.

These presses were originally made for proofing half inch thick commercially engraved dies but they have been used for production work on embossed monograms and family seals.  The big brother, about 50% again the weight, is almost completely restored as well.  This one will reside at Loyola University New Orleans in the graphic design department with Professors Daniela Marx and Nancy Bernardo.  A small but burgeoning cottage industry for print engraving is being nurtured here in New Orleans by Yvette Rutlidge, venerable typographer, sign letter and master engraver, Mystic Blue Signs.  Yve will be devoting a portion of her shop to the letter arts, and, engraving.

Follow the entire story, here:

http://typophile.com/node/59459
http://typophile.com/node/58983
(sample of the 1/2″ thick steel dies) http://typophile.com/node/51918
http://typophile.com/node/51189

So Noted: In Search of Monograms

Nancy Sharon Collins, A/K/A the engraving lady, is seeking submissions of engraved social stationery, read about it in the Mohawk paper website.

read more about it.