After understanding the history of the illuminated letter, I explored the contemporary counterpart. Based on the visual language of three artists of my choosing, I was instructed to create a series of illuminated letters based on their styles. Carefully studying what characterized the styles of my artists, I created three contemporary illuminated letters based on the initial of their last names. General parameters included careful emulation of artistic style through form and color.
Keith Haring:
Donald Judd:
Salvador Dali:
Le Project Overview:
I enjoyed pretty much everything about this project. The timeline and workload was well paced and the parameters were fairly loose compared to the other projects. Because the artists of my choosing used different mediums, it was nice take a more hands-on approach to typography rather than spend the majority of the time using digital rendering of the works. If I had to do anything over again, I would like to like to explore more of my favorite artists, because although I really enjoy the works of the artist I eventually narrowed my project down to, it would be interesting to see how the styles are conveyed through letters.
An illumination is an embellishment, or additional decoration that enhances the pages of a written, or manuscript page. The term, Illumination comes from the term Illuminate, or to fill with light. This effect is achieved with the application of gold leaf to the letters and images, which reflect light and appear to glow.
An illuminated letter was usually the first letter of a page or paragraph. It was always enlarged and in color with gold applied in areas, while the rest of the text remained black. The images used to enhance the letters include animals, plants, and mythological creatures. These images were modified to fit into or around the letter, or in some cases took on the shape of the letter itself.
Drop Cap:
The first letter of a paragraph that is enlarged to "drop" down two or more lines, as in the next paragraph. Drop caps are often seen at the beginning of novels, where the top of the first letter of the first word lines up with the top of the first sentence and drops down to the four or fifth sentence.
Artists I enjoy, worship, garner inspiration from, etc:
*Salvador Dali (surrealism) - A prominent Spanish surrealist painter. Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters.His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire includes film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media.
*Donald Judd (minimalism) - An American minimalist artist (a term he stridently disavowed).In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and the space created by it, ultimately achieving a rigorously democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy. It created an outpouring of seemingly effervescent works that defied the term "minimalism."
*Keith Haring (graffiti, street art) - An American street artist who used a unique style inspired by graffiti, cartoons, and comic strips, which he displayed in works drawn clandestinely at night on subway station walls around the city. He also created paintings, drawings, and prints in a graffiti style, filling the works from edge to edge using signs, abstract symbols, and human and animal figures writhing in a spaceless, airless design. In the 1980s he executed murals in New York and exhibited internationally, achieving great commercial success.
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