Güüti

2011-10-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

I made a small postcard to promote the opening of a new website for Lucky's, a comic book shop in Vancouver, Canada. It's a nice little shop, we visited it this May while traveling there. The address is in the picture and you can also test the legibility of the text at the same time.

Office Lettering zine

2011-09-17T09:25:00.001-07:00

I made a small office lettering -zine from the material on this blog. It's available this weekend from Helsinki Comics Festival small press area and later from somewhere else. I'll update the "later" part later. 20 pages, color.

ArtovaKino film club Logo

2011-08-22T13:19:00.000-07:00

I'm slowly returning from long summer vacations, and it's time to start posting again. I was asked to make a logo / identity for a film club that takes place in autumn in Helsinki. There used to be an active film club tradition in Finland but it's lately been fading away. These guys want to revive it, and that's a very good thing.

I wanted to make something that play with transparency and give an impression of light, like the British Film Institute and Cinémathèque Française logos have. That is naturally very fitting for projected art. I started with some hand-made lettering but I couldn't quite make them work. Eventually I took a more geometrical approach that seemed to work much better in this case.

The logo is formed of lines but their thickness and coloring vary according to application. The basic form with thin black lines is for white backgrounds:

The basic color logo is the headline image of this post. Below it is placed on top of an image, the transparency gives nice effects on the colors.

When the lines grow even thicker, the form turns more abstract. Also, different line thicknesses on the colors break the forms up nicely. The basic form of the letters remains the same.

I'm working on an animation also to be shown before the screenings.

ArtovaKino website.

Tattoo Dictionary in Tate Britain

2011-06-01T01:20:00.000-07:00

I was asked to come to Tate Britain in London to make the Tattoo Dictionary. That's pretty nice, I'm not complaining. The show is on this friday evening (June 3rd), welcome if you're around! The photos from the event will go to flickr afterwards.

Street art festival logo proposal

2011-04-13T11:08:00.000-07:00

I was recently asked if I could join an upcoming street art festival with my Tattoo Dictionary -project. Unfortunately I had prior commitments that same weekend, so I had to decline. This Monday one of the organizers asked if I could anyway help them out by designing a logo for the festival. I thought I could give it a shot since she said they liked my work. It was due on Friday so there wasn't really time to make multiple proposals.

I thought I'd start with the name of the festival (Suuri Katutaidetapahtuma, The Big Street Art Event in English) since I kind of like long words. I made a few sketches on paper on how the words should look and how they should be divided into lines. I was aiming for a roundish shape. I made a playful word shape with the lines from some letters continuing into others. The line is of uniform width, so the logo would only represent "street art style" and not try to illustrate it directly.

I sent the preliminary logo in for comments, but one of the organizers said it wasn't really what they were looking for. Which isn't really surprising since they didn't tell me what they were looking for. So they'll go on with something else then. But I was quite happy with this version so I'll share it here.

Grön Ungdom RÅM 2011

2011-01-19T06:48:00.000-08:00

This is a new logo I designed for the Swedish Green Party's youth organisation's event taking place this year. It's the 25th anniversary of the event, like it also says in the logo. In addition to the logo, I made a layout template for the information kit.

The visual concept in my mind was to have different shades of green come together for a larger whole. The shades represent the variety of opinions taking part in the event. Every separate "element" is of different color than the previous one.

Official site

Handmade Lettering 41

2011-01-10T02:34:00.000-08:00

Happy 2011! Here's another old lettering sample from the office era. "Retrospectives" were meetings where we looked at how things had gone on that "sprint". I'm starting to forget all this, which may be good. Anyway, they were held every two weeks, so I think I still have a lot of unposted lettering scans with the same theme. This reminds me of some sport logos for some reason.

I think I started making a vector version of this one, though I'm not sure where it is now. Maybe it was to check if this works well on a grid. I may post it later if I find it.

Mutu Research Logo

2010-12-15T12:45:00.000-08:00

Mutu Research is a new "research company" founded by me. We're still operating mainly in facebook. The logo above is one version of the various logos. Different versions have different mouths and can be used for different purposes. The swash on the right side of the logo of course refers to the glasses all the wise people are wearing. One can also see breasts instead of eyes in the logo, this is also permitted* in the official graphic guidelines.

The logo is not yet really a Registered Trademark so maybe I shouldn't be using the ®, but it looks nice anyway.

Mutu Research in Facebook (in Finnish and English)

* permitted to 18 years old and above.

Handmade Lettering 40

2010-12-07T01:45:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've uploaded an office lettering sample. This is of course because I don't have as many meetings as a freelancer. And if I do have some, I'm probably supposed to be an active participant, so I can't scribble too much. Oh well! I don't miss the job though.

I do have lots of unposted things from the previous job though, so I'll post them occasionally. And of course I will have some new lettering coming from notes in sketchbooks etc.

This one is old enough that I can't remember the details of it. We probably had a series of meetings on a same day so it was mostly listening to people talking all day long. This was made with felt-tip and ball-point pens, original size is about 13,5 x 8 cm.

Typographic Workshop

2010-11-16T04:57:00.000-08:00

Sanna working on "Tipu"

I took part in a nice typography / lettering workshop on the weekend. The class was organized by Grafia (The Finnish association of graphic designers) and was taught by Mr. Sami Kortemäki of Underware fame.

The theme was "Make the ego bigger" and the assignment was to divide into pairs and make the other person's name into a logotype. I got paired with a friend from the university, Tuukka.

Tuukka's a very nice guy but I initially had some trouble with the double u's and the double k's in his name. But it's not his fault of course. I first tried to find some nice way to draw the letters to one line like in normal text, one result is below. The line from "T" to "u" was added later. Below the logotype are some attempts to handle the double letters in a more intesting way.

I was almost starting to work on the more finished version based on the image above, but then I did make one more sketch with the "uu" and "kk" on different lines. That seemed to work better so I continued in that direction. Next image shows some quick sketches on that idea. The initial and best version is the one that is underlined.

Below is a more finished version that is quite close to the final one.

The final-final drawing can be seen on the wall in the picture below, along with some other logotypes.

And finally there's the Official Photo with Tuukka and his new shiny logotype. Photo and layout by Sami Kortemäki.

Grafia

Sami Kortemäki / Underware

Bossa Nova

2010-11-09T11:17:00.000-08:00

This is a headline lettering for a poster my friend requested for his presentation about Bossa Nova music. It was used together with some famous record covers.

The text consists of five separate lines forming the letters. I first drew this by hand to get the basic lines and their relations right, and then scanned it and made a vector version. The colors are of course the same as in the flag of Brazil. Each of the five lines has a separate gradient coloring to keep the look a bit more lively. There are some areas the curves could have been smoothed out a bit more but I like the look in general.

Sodankylä posters II

2010-11-01T04:08:00.000-07:00

I had a few more poster-related photos left from Sodankylä, best to put them up too I guess.

The first photo above shows the window of Sodankylä's only permanent movie theatre, Lapinsuu, filled with festival posters. Usually we were supposed to remove the posters as soon as the showings were done, but the full window does look nice in my opinion. I only got to see one screening in Lapinsuu, though: Io sono l'amore. That was quite good. And with stylish title typography.

Another place where the posters were posted was in the fences around the festival area. The photo above is by the entrance to the food & beer tent.

This was our workspace. It was at the end of the festival office corridor, so we had a lot of people come in and ask for the office that they had just passed on the way to our tables. Perhaps we should have made some signs showing the office door.

Above is a small sign made for the doorway of a temporary cinema (which used to be the indoor sporting hall of a school).

And last is a view from the shore beside the festival HQ. It's not quite the midnight sun, but close. The photo was taken 15 minutes before midnight.

Kallion kulttuuriverkosto -logo

2010-10-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

I live in the Kallio neighborhood of Helsinki and I like the area. It used to be a working-class area and still has a lot of young people and students so it's quite lively. Lots of drunks too of course. It's pretty densely populated, for Helsinki standards at least.

Kallion kulttuuriverkosto (Kallio Cultural Network) is a local organization that arranges events in and near the neighborhood. They had a logo contest, and while I usually don't take part in those, I thought I'd make an exception because it's sort of for the neighborhood and for a non-profit organization. Anyway, I apparently won the contest with the entry pictured here.

Above is a black & white version and below a color one.

The name of the organization is quite long, typical for Finnish language. And I didn't want to have a very long logotype so I had to hyphenate it. Kulttuuriverkosto is a compound word so there was a natural place to cut it. I started building the logo from small vector elements on a grid, a bit like building Legos™®©. First I made the regular letters but then decided there should be some interplay between the letters and lines, so I built some more organic forms in by connecting things to each other.

I put the small circles at the ends of some letters and then started thinking they look a bit like plant seeds. So I figured they can represent the plants growing from the cracks in alphalt, and symbolically maybe some events happening on the streets.

The whole shape of the logo is not confined to a square but instead seems to grow a bit into each direction. That is a symbol for the events taking place in not just Kallio, but around the "edges" as well. Of course, everyone seems to have a bit different definition for where the borders are.

I made this quite quickly so I didn't make optical corrections to the lines (horizontals should be slightly thinner than verticals so they would appear the same visually), but since the shape is sort of complex, that is not the first thing that bothers the eye.

I haven't seen the logo been used that much, and it's usually used quite small. Would be nice to see it used larger too, but maybe they're still practicing. Anyway, I'm quite happy with the result.

Posters from Sodankylä film festival

2010-10-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in the previous post, I went to Sodankylä Film Festival this year to make posters. My friend had asked me at least twice previously, but due to the day job and my bad planning-ahead-skills I had not managed to go before. This year I finally did manage to go there and it was definitely a very nice week.

The film festival has a tradition of hand-made posters, maybe even dating back to when the festival was first started 25 years ago. Every day there are some selected showings that need posters done. We usually were warned a few hours in advance, sometimes even the previous day, about which films posters were needed for, and what extra info there might be. Aside from the posters, we also made signage and other lettering.

Everything is done by hand and copy machines, I did bring my laptop along but we only used it for reference. It was very refreshing to work just by hand, since the computer easily becomes the default tool for everything. I did cheat a bit by drawing smaller and enlarging with the copy machine, but I suppose it's analog enough.

This was the first year there was a dedicated poster/graphics team. Besides making the posters, we also went to glue them around the town (which is quite small). The work was nicely paced, there was time to go to see the films also. Apparently the visiting directors also appreciate the custom posters and I heard some of them had asked copies for themselves. That is of course the best feedback a poster artist could get.

The festival itself was great, worth the 15-hour drive (I did have some friends with driving licenses along). As I said, the town is very small, so there's not that much to do besides see movies. It does get quite packed with everyone from the south coming over for the week. There's also a strange feeling of timelessness with the sun being above the horizon all the time, sometimes it's hard to guess the time of day. Most likely we'll return next year for more niceness.

The first image (above) is a detail of a silent film concert poster (3 Chaplin's short films). I heard the conductor had asked for a copy of the poster. Below is the whole poster.

Second poster is for Sergio Leone's classic spaghetti western For A Few Dollars More. Mr. Leone obviously wasn't a guest in the festival.

The third poster if for an Italian film by Pietro Marcello, which sounded interesting but that I didn't manage to see unfortunately. The director had also asked for a copy which was nice.

I might have some more lettering photos from the festival somewhere, maybe for the next post.

My girlfriend made some very nice posters too.

Film festival official pages.

Café chalkboard

2010-10-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

As I've apologized for the delay between updates before, I won't do it this time. Fortunately I have made some lettering-related things while not updating.

Above is a chalkboard menu for a very nice café in Helsinki, Gran Delicato. This is my first actual chalkboard lettering work. I've been frequenting the café for long time now because of their excellent coffees, bread etc. They know my usual order by heart so I sometimes don't even have to say anything when ordering. The café is not even very close to my place but it's worth the trip anyway.

I tested the chalk drawing on a smaller board the café had, and it didn't work too well, but fortunately the larger board had a better surface for drawing. The small text isn't too stylized since it was a bit clumsy drawing it with the chalk, but the larger headlines match my paper sketches quite well.

The detail photos are cropped from the same image.

I made the board in June after going to Sodankylä Film Festival to draw posters (more on that later), and last week I made some small changes to show some new things that are going to be on the menu. The photos are from the first version.

Gran Delicato on eat.fi

Tattoo dictionary

2009-11-04T07:30:00.000-08:00

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.

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

2009-09-01T08:24:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-25T06:29:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-04T05:27:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-28T04:49:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-22T02:56:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-14T06:55:00.000-07:00

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.

Handmade Lettering 33

2009-07-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

I missed two postings again (two weeks ago because I was going to London for a little vacation & a week ago just by the power of forgetfulness), but since it's summer and the weather was nice too I doubt anyone noticed. Now that it's cold and raining again I managed to return to the blog. Let's see how it goes next week.

This entry is a new one in the Excel series (previous ones: 1, 2, and 3), might even be the last one that I have scanned. Our excels at work often have lists of upcoming projects etc. so that counts as Krazy Stuff, I guess. Maybe I'm being ironic but maybe not! Anyway, this was made with the usual stuff + blue paint pen. Original size about 11 x 8 cm.

Handmade Lettering 32

2009-06-17T04:01:00.000-07:00

Today's image is again pretty general in tone. I forgot when this was made, I'd say probably slightly after the Japan spring trip since the background gray is from a paint marker I bought there. I definitely forgot the context and am not even guessing that. There are some old skool glitter effects anyways! Small blue text in the bottom is more legible in reality but I suppose the scanner light angle flattened it somehow. Sorry about that. Made with the usual tools + the paint marker. Original size about 9,5 x 5 cm.

Handmade Lettering 31

2009-06-10T23:38:00.000-07:00

The Excel series continues (earlier posts here and here) with another blackletterish version. The lines at the letter endings on the upper part were possibly supposed to give more of a spiky look but it does look a bit hairy. Fortunately the lower word has amazing 3D shadow effects to take the attention away from the hair. I kind of like how the uneven letter heights and placing gives the words a slight expressionist typography look. Made with felt-tip, ball-point and gel pens. Original size about 8 x 6 cm.

Handmade Lettering 30

2009-06-04T11:18:00.000-07:00

It's time for the fabulous 30th posting. How time flies! Because of yesterday being team day at work this is a bit late from the usual schedule. On the other hand, there have been so many lapses from the usual schedule that I'm not really certain it exists anymore. Anyway, the word was made quite recently, I forget the original context though. The word itself doesn't give any clues. It's finnish and means "yes". The letterspacing is a bit uneven for such a short word but I promise to do better in the future. Made with ball-point and gel pens on top of very nice Posca paint marker (or what the word is for those). Original size about 10 x 6,5 cm.

Handmade Lettering 29

2009-05-27T23:56:00.000-07:00

Sir Spend-A-Lot Returns once again! Earlier posts here and here and here. These aren't chronological, this one is from 2006, I believe. Probably from a trip to Barcelona and Lisbon. There are some other markings on the bottom of the page to show some hint of how the page looks in the actual sketchbook. I had to clean up the page a bit too (because of markings on the other side of the sheet seeping through), but hopefully it's not too noticeable. Made with ball-point and gel pens. Original size about 13,5 x 6,5 cm.

Handmade Lettering 28

2009-05-20T06:18:00.000-07:00

I don't remember exactly what was the source of this word but it would probably be top secret anyway so no big loss there. In this word I went to a chiseled sort of look, but it might have been a bit too blocky after all so I added the green stuff soon afterwards. All this has very little to do with the game of football. Made with felt-tip pen on the base and gel + ball-point pens for the details. Original size about 7,5 x 6,5 cm.

Handmade Lettering 27

2009-05-13T23:23:00.000-07:00

This week's posting is the first one made on a post-it note if I remember correctly. The text contains the names of myself and a friend from work in a nicknamish form. This was drawn during a team assignment at some sort of big team meeting day, we had a two-person team. The ends of the words were the same so they have been connected. The red slogan was "inspired" by some Pepsi Max video that tried to be tough but didn't dare to actually use curse words. Original size is the same as a post-it-note of that shape. Made with felt-tip-, ball-point and gel pens.

Handmade Lettering 26

2009-05-07T06:22:00.001-07:00

To continue the Excel theme that started two weeks ago, I now post a second image in celebration of that wonderful program. There are a few more Excel-letterings still waiting for posting after this. This one has a blackletter shape but apparently I thought flat letters would have been too boring (though the letterforms themselves do look pretty nice) so some dimensionality has been added with the colors. Made with felt-tip and gel pens. Original size about 6 x 3,5 cm.

Handmade Lettering 25

2009-04-29T05:10:00.000-07:00

This is the 25th handmade lettering -posting to the blog, tadaa! So the image this time is one I'm quite happy about (and have been saving a bit actually). It's from my Feb 2006 Berlin trip and inspired by a visit to the Filmmuseum in Potsdamer Platz and the nice Metropolis film posters there. If I remember correctly this one took some time so I was already back in Helsinki when I finished this. Or maybe I started this after the trip. Well who knows. The original size is about 14 x 13 cm. Made with ball-point pens.

Handmade Lettering 24

2009-04-21T10:54:00.000-07:00

So then, I managed to miss two postings in a row. Oh well, at least I managed to use the previous wednesday for useful purpose: moving to a new flat. Still in the same neighbourhood, very nice 7th floor views (sort of 7th even though it says 6th on the wall) and much more light.

On to the posting then! This was made after the Japan trip so quite recently. I have heard of some other work places use Microsoft Excel too, so the main word here might be familiar for some readers. We probably were looking at some plans from an excel file so the word comes from there. The Someone is left anonymous on purpose. The color scheme is green-blueish for a change, many recent ones have had red-black so I figured some variety couldn't hurt. Made with same ol' same ol'. Original size about 6 x 4,5 cm.

Handmade Lettering 23

2009-04-03T00:12:00.000-07:00

This week's post is late again, this time I can't even use the same excuse as last time. I'll think of a good excuse and post it later. This scan is from a Berlin trip 2006 (first one of that year). The drawing was too close to the wire binding so I couldn't make a symmetric border all the way around the text. The wire binding holes are visible in the left in case you didn't believe me. Original was quite small so the look may be more rough as some other works. This continues the black-red color theme from the previous post. Made with ball-point pens only. Original size about 4 x 4 cm.

Handmade Lettering 22

2009-03-27T02:02:00.000-07:00

Oh dear, this week's entry is late! I should blame something for this. Maybe I didn't transfer my workfiles to my new laptop yet? Sounds beliavable. Anyway, on to the image: I may have mentioned that I sometimes I just pick up semi-random words from conversations and draw those. This time I picked "Thing" which reminded me of the horror film by John Carpenter (IMDB) and the 50's movie it was based on (IMDB again). So the word has traces from old poster lettering (in my mind at least, I didn't bother to check the actual posters for the films mentioned). Made with a red ball-point pen and a drying black felt-tip pen. Original size was quite small, about 4 x 3 cm.

Handmade Lettering 21

2009-03-19T12:20:00.000-07:00

Güüti ist zurück! The Japan trip went very nicely, though there wasn't too much extra time and/or energy to draw lots of nice headlines. Some were done anyway, probably they will be seen in the blog in the future. Lots of nice new pens and stuff now though.

The actual post is an older one this time but keeps within the classic theme of "Paltsu". Might even be two years old or more. This was done on a separate sheet of paper without any other text so the actual date may never be determined. What an exciting mystery! Anyway, I like the different-from-usual limited color palette, should do this kind of thing more. Done with felt-tip, ball-point and gel pens as always. Original size about 10,5 x 7,5 cm.

Handmade Lettering 20

2009-02-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

Sir Spend-A-Lot returns once again with a sequel to a previous post (here), made on 2007 Berlin-Copenhagen-Hamburg-Berlin trip. The red-orange text may not be as fluorescent as in reality since the scanner couldn't handle it or optionally I'm not good enough with scanning techniques. Same orange was in the prequel image too. The letterforms seem to be inspired by old signage, "August" may have some german old school grotesk type inspiration. Of course I've actually forgotten whether I had some actual influences here or if I just pulled these out of my head. Original size about 12,5 x 9,5 cm. Made with the usual things except felt-tip pens.

Güüti is going on a vacation this Saturday, off to Japan for three weeks! But don't worry, after that the regular updates will resume normally. There's new stuff to scan and old stuff waiting for upload. And probably Japan will offer plenty of nice visuals to be later seen here too. See you then!

Handmade Lettering 19

2009-02-11T10:10:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day is very soon so I use the opportunity to publish a suitable headline. This one is from work where we were planning some campaign materials for the occasion. The larger letters are a bit hairy, but I assure you it's due to the paper quality, no hidden meanings should be connected to that look. Made with the usual tools, see previous posts for details. Original size about 6 x 5,5 cm.

Enjoy the day in question!

Handmade Lettering 18

2009-02-04T12:54:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm in a flu at home but managed to remember the update still. This is from late-ish autumn when it wasn't yet freezing and we were planning a small local sightseeing trip to Sipoo (a county next to Helsinki). The drawing was on the paper in the same angle so I left it the same way here also. Original size about 9,5 x 7 cm, made with the usual tripet of ball-point-, gel- and felt tip pens.

Handmade Lettering 17

2009-01-28T10:49:00.000-08:00

Some blackletter style this week plus some other styles thrown to the mix. This is made either just before or just after New Year as the text may reveal. The "H" in Neue Jahr would probably look better with a thinner right column but that's the way it is now. Sprint still refers to the project managing thing. This is made with ball-point, felt-tip and silver gel pens. Original size is about 11,5 x 6 cm.

Handmade Lettering 16

2009-01-21T23:01:00.000-08:00

Well, I seem to have missed the Wednesday deadline because of tehcnical problems. Blame goes to my non-working connection at home and not myself for updating earlier when it was still working. Anyway, today's scan is again from a Monday meeting, the actual date is surprisingly included. Sprinting does not refer to the form of movement but to a project planning system used at work. So maybe I'm repeating myself there. The handmade block type looks nice in longer texts than in just one line. Legibility might not be so great but that's how it goes sometimes. Original size about 9 x 4,5 cm. Made with felt-tip, ball-point and gel pens.

Handmade Lettering 15

2009-01-14T04:58:00.000-08:00

Picture of the week is from... well, some meeting. Clearly from a very important one! Looks like the meeting was long enough for me to spend a bit of time with details. Although the darkest line looks a bit like an old school telephone cord it doesn't necessarily mean the meeting was a conference call. "Meeting" has a similar style to the first lettering post of this blog, though with less overlapping parts. Made with the usual set of ball-point-, gel and felt-tip pens. Original size about 12 x 7 cm.

Handmade Lettering 14

2009-01-07T03:40:00.001-08:00

New year and new posts. This one is from autumn, I think, and has something to do with organizational changes within the company I work for. More scripty feel here than in some of the previous ones. I made a slight mistake with the year there but in the name of honesty decided to not photoshop it out. Made with ball-point pens only. Original size is about 10 x 7 cm.

Handmade Lettering 13

2008-12-31T00:55:00.000-08:00

Just in time for new year, here's the newest update. This one has a slightly more formal look than some of the previous ones. It's kind of nice to make hand-drawn versions of sharp grotesk letterforms, sometimes they gain a nice liveliness in the process, I think the above picture is quite successful in that sense. I doubt the "2004" in the text refers to the date of the drawing but it could refer to the year I started my current job in. Made with only ball-point pens. Original size about 10,5 x 5 cm.

Happy New Year!

Handmade Lettering 12

2008-12-23T03:33:00.000-08:00

I usually update on wednesdays but since tomorrow is Christmas Eve I figured it's reason enough to change the posting day just this once. This scan is slightly icon-like BrainStorm from yet another forgotten meeting. It might even be a symbol for everyone's hard thinking process for getting presents this time of year, if you choose to view it that way. Original size was about 3,5 x 3,5 cm so this has been magnified quite a bit. Made with same old ball-point and gel pens, though they look a bit painterly with the enlargement.

Enjoy the holidays!

Handmade Lettering 11

2008-12-17T07:41:00.000-08:00

This is the second Sir Spend-A-Lot headline (first one here) although chronologically before the previously posted one. This time I left the paper texture and some other details visible so there's some context. Below the headline you can see glimpses of a calendar with dates and some expenses from a trip listed below them. I usually make some sort of simple graphic look for each page. The mysterious smudge in the upper right corner was a check to see of the pen worked. Made with the same pens as everything posted before. Original size is about 13 x 8 cm.

Handmade Lettering 10

2008-12-10T03:42:00.000-08:00

I seem to have managed a regular weekly update for 10 times in a row now, not too bad. There's more on the way too of course.

This image is a headline from a work project unofficially codenamed Frank that was going to be updated, hence 'the new Frank'. Of course written in maybe-not-correct german instead of english since Herr Güüti is the one making these.

Most updates so far seem to have been quite roundish in letterforms, so this may be a welcome contrast. I've used the blackletter-style letterforms also in my ball-point-pen-tattoo dictionary project, check it out at some-guy.net (or in facebook). Made, as usually, with felt-tip, ball-point- and gel pens. Original size about 9,5 x 9,5 cm

Handmade Lettering 9

2008-12-03T08:29:00.000-08:00

Oops, I almost forgot about my self-imposed Wednesday upload day since I'm at home in a slight fever. Here is anyway a word written on a nice textured surface paper, I tried to leave a bit of the paper pattern visible in the black areas. This style might be worth exploring in a bit longer text and maybe with a bit less shading, let's see if I remember to try that. Made with same ol' felt-tip and gel pens. Original size about 8 x 4 cm.

Handmade Lettering 8

2008-11-26T05:34:00.000-08:00

This time there's some black & white lettering - well, black and silver to be exact. It's of course very important to not slip any confidential company things into these posts since some of them are made at work meetings. As the above is a typical example of my notes my employer shouldn't have too much to worry about. As usually, this is made with felt-tip-, ball-point- and gel pens. Original size about 6 x 11 cm.

Handmade Lettering 7

2008-11-19T01:20:00.001-08:00

Once again, some team meeting "notes" from work. I don't remember if there were any actual notes on the paper besides this headline, probably not. The meeting in question was apparently on friday. Original size is about 11 x 7 cm. Made with gel-, ball-point- and felt-tip-pens.

Handmade Lettering 6

2008-11-12T06:41:00.001-08:00

Here I tried to do some old school round lettering with simple highlights and shadows. The square letters give some shape contrast to the round ones. Base forms were made with felt-tip pens with shadows and highlights added in regular ball-point pens and gel pens. Original size about 7 x 4 cm.

Handmade Lettering 5

2008-11-05T06:41:00.001-08:00

This one was made recently at work, in a meeting about recruitment things. Original size about 10 x 5 cm. Made with ball-point- and gel pens.

Handmade Lettering 4

2008-10-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

This headline was made before and during a late 2006 holiday trip to Barcelona. I tried to get all letters done with one line but of course the holes in some letters are separate. Made with ball-point pens.

Handmade Lettering 3

2008-10-21T23:09:00.001-07:00

Sir Spend-A-Lot is a repeating headline I'm using while traveling to keep track of how much money I'm spending. Since these pages can be in active use for more than a week they naturally need nice headlines. This one is from early 2008 trip to London and Paris. Made with gel and ball-point pens.

Handmade Lettering 2

2008-10-17T02:43:00.001-07:00

On the weekly work meetings I seem to get lots of lettering done. I trust someone else to take care of actual notes, of course, and concentrate only on the headlines.

"Palzu" means a meeting in sort-of-finnish. Made with felt-tip-, ballpoint- and silver gel pens.

Handmade Lettering 1

2008-10-15T00:20:00.000-07:00

I'm starting a series of handmade lettering images scanned from my sketchbook and notes.

The images will not be cleaned up too much to maintain the handmade look I personally like about these.

This text is a random note from the sketchbook for no real purpose. The flat letterforms looked like they could be "ribbonized" so I tested that. Made with red felt-tip and ball-point pens.

Logos

2008-04-07T08:20:00.000-07:00

I made some Güüti-logo sketches based on an old typographic idea about there being lots of dots in the word. Here are some rough samples (screenshots from Illustrator): One and Two.

Welcome

2008-04-02T08:07:00.000-07:00

I have been pressurized to start a blog so here we are. Actual content possibly coming also in the future!

Greetings from Mörkö as well!