Tattoo dictionary

Hello dear readers, as you may have noticed this blog has been on hiatus for a while now.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I was taking part in an exhibition Planet Fun Fun in Kerava art museum with my Official Ball-point Pen Tattoo Dictionary Project. In finnish it's "kuulakärkikynätatuointisanakirjaprojekti" which is a nice word. The exhibition went very well, some nice reviews in major papers included. I collected all the words I drew in Flickr sets, many with some notes and at least some info should be coming to all the images later. Take a look!

Official Tattoo Dictionary in Flickr.

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Tattoos made in the Planet Fun Fun -exhibition

In other news, I'm back to freelancing after a bit over five years in Sulake. Thery were having some layoffs for typical "financial reasons" and I managed to be one of those. I did actually talk with my boss about volunteering to go, so this is not a bad thing. Five years anywhere is quite long these days, and I have stuff of my own to work on. On the other hand, I have to start arranging meetings myself now, just to keep the headlines coming for this blog. Anyway, I'm available for freelance projects now.

I did already get a new laptop and am now waiting for the CS4 Master Collection to arrive via UPS. So after I get that installed, look for more lettering entries in the blog.

Handmade Lettering 39

This week's posting is also an advertisement for an exhibition opening a week from now. A group of ten artists, including myself, have a 6-week engagement in Kerava art museum. I did mention it in an earlier post. Image of the invitation here, crop marks and all. I'll be doing my ball-point pen tattoo dictionary project and also another thing that also has to do with typography. Welcome to see it! The image has the name of the exhibition written . The shading was a bit unfinished like my part of the exhibition actually is too... Though hopefully everything will get finished in time. Made with felt-tip, ball-point and gel pens. Original size about 9,5 x 5,5 cm.

Handmade Lettering 38

OK, back from vacations, could have lasted a bit longer though... But I've still got some holidays waiting fortunately. This week's post was made probably in July - August. The company I work for has a new product out and I was making banners to advertise it. I was also along in designing the logo (because of this blog, actually) but that was earlier this year. The headline is from a brainstorm as it says (in case you are feeling too lazy to rotate your head. The script and blackletterish letterforms work quite nicely together and there's a slightly kinetic look to the whole thing. Script words could maybe benefit from smoother edges, but since these are all quickly made I didn't bother to polish that too much. Made with felt-tip pens with a touch of gel silver. Original size about 12,5 x 9,5 cm.

Handmade Lettering 37

Today's update has something in common with the previous post, namely the black letters with silver detailing. The style is different enough so I thought it's not a crime to post this. I was testing some letters with ornaments inside, similar to what I sometimes draw outside the words. It looked quite OK, so I figured I'd try to make the word itself in similar roundish forms so there would be sort of a double ornament. Word is cut to three rows to form a square shape. Notice how the horizontal line of the t goes through the line of the p descender instead of the loop. This is probably showing my buried aggression. Made with black felt-tip and silver gel pens, original size bit below 7 x 7 cm.

I'll be heading for a drive up north (Lapland etc.) for one and a half weeks so I will be skipping at least one update, perhaps two. So, later then!

Handmade Lettering 36

I just managed to finish (hopefully) some banners at work so this posting is honoring that little advancement in my week. The above headline doesn't actually have anything to do the banners I finished but hey, banners are banners, you know. There's some similarity in letterforms to an early blog post, though this one has more depth in the lines. The paper was too narrow to contain all the letters in the same style so I switched to smaller letters. And in the end circle to even smaller letters. But this works quite ok still. Made with felt-tip, ball-point and silver gel pens. Original size about 10 x 7 cm.

Handmade Lettering 35

This week's entry is from my sketchbook instead of office notes. It's a headline image from a note page dealing with my upcoming exhibition (or my part in a group exibition to be more accurate). The name of the exhibition will be Planet FunFun but since I wanted to keep it a secret at the time I wrote this unbreakable codename instead. The exhibition will have typographic & lettering stuff also, so I will probably post more about it later.

There's a strange glitch in the upper middle part of the picture, maybe some scanner thing or somesuch. Anyway, I'll keep it to myself. This was made with ball-point pens (red text) and paint + gel pens (center text). Original size about 13,5 x 10 cm.

Handmade Lettering 34

This is a not an actual meeting headline but some typographic testing made during some meeting. I suppose there's not much difference though, except I don't have to worry about any work secrets. The stripe thinking could probably have been taken further, it might be good to keep in mind to do that. The blue tones of this one are similar to the previous post but I'll try to pick some different ones for the next week. Made with the usual tools, original size is about 7 x 5 cm.