Jazz Dance Poster

I was asked to make a poster for an event by Helsinki Traditional Jazz Dancers. I don't know much about jazz dance but sounded fun, so I decided to do it. I hadn't done any actual hand-made lettering for a while so I thought that could be the starting point of the poster.

I first made some pencil sketches which looked all right. Then there was a break in the work and I misplaced the original sketches, so I drew more different ones, inspired by a book of Doyald Young's work that I read at a friend's place. There was still missing a certain flow that I had in mind, so I tried lettering with a Pelikan ink, the lettering instrument actually being the plastic tube that is attached to the cap of the ink bottle. This took a little practice at first, but I managed to get the hang of it quite fast anyway. This produced some nice randomness that I wanted the text to have.

I actually thought I would letter all the texts by hand but that turned out to be a bit too big job for the schedule so I settled for a font that would contrast the handmadeness. The client was very happy with the poster, as were I. Nice job. Now I need some more ink to continue. The final poster is below.

Office Lettering zine

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.