My First Calligraphy

The first project in Experiential History of Graphic Design took us all the way back to ink and paper. Each student had to write a quote in Gothic and the challenge was to use illustration to illuminate the quote.

Although I am a graphic designer, I am horrible at drawing and writing with my hand. For this project I had to practice quite a bit. By the time I had to write the quote, I actually felt comfortable enough to do it.

The quote I selected was from Nas’s classic Illmatic: “I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death.” For the illumination, I went from using Nas’s portrait to NYC (city that never sleeps) to a simple drop cap using the eye of horus to a tombstone with a cross made up of eyes of horus.

For the final design, I stripped the illumination down to just using the cross and eyes of horus. I also replace the first letter I with a more fancy drop cap. I made the I red as well as the eye’s iris red. I am happy with the outcome. I’ll definitely pick up calligraphy again just for fun in the future.