I’ve been collecting bibles for a while now. Today I managed to add five more to the collection!

I love old books, the experience and history of an old book, it is something that needs to be cherished and appreciated.

Anyway, £28 for bibles that are exquisitely bound, letterpress and and are well over a collective age of 200 years! One is a Catholic version, heavy and feels authoritative, gilded edges and embossed. Beautifully set and with shoulder notes, justified text, over large numbers; it really is something to marvel at.

My other quirky purchase is a ‘Reading from the Holy Scriptures for Jewish soldiers and sailors. A small pocket bible that was taken to war and has some wear to prove it!

I find it ironic that the little book was put in a war scenario, a war that was ultimately against the Jews in some respects.

I love the type setting, the chunkiness, the raw honesty of the text, the layout. How it was to be used, who was to use it. These are things that I felt I’ve overlooked in my research so far. The academic part pushing the research rather than understanding the design context.

I’ve uploaded the images to flickr, I’ve decided to make a more thorough exploration into understand the changes of language within each Genesis example. Hopefully, speaking to a Theologian will give more clarity on meaning, what emphasis the punctuation carries for the words. How these are interpreted by the viewer and how socially and culturally they impact on understanding and true meaning.

So uni has started again! YAY!

I have a mountain of work that seems to be growing and I’m needing to create some type of map that is showing my thought processes and decision making. I don’t even know what that is, as I tend to just follow my instinct and whether I like it.

So keep the tangents on the slow burner and work out the work! (Easier said than done!)

On another note: A lovely project about 100 colours, writings and days.

A good friend of mine runs a design collective called Mill and whilst browsing through the pages I noticed a course being held on photo etching. So click link and violia the WYPW website pops up. I’m utterly gutted that I can’t do the photo course (holidays!) but I am going to become a member and enrol on some of their other courses.

I thought it would be quite good to add the etching side of things to the skill set. I’ve been considering creating some woodcuts over the summer. Experimenting with inks, cuts and so forth. However, I wanted to take a month off of research due to lots of things happening here. Also to recharge the batteries a bit.

The call of working is luring me back, I acutally miss being immersed in the research and reading, though my social life tends to suffer for the love of the art! Anyway, I shall visit Hobbycraft today and see what type of etching and wood/lino cutting tools they have!

Next week is hand in for three projects:

1. Project Development Two (Punctuation)

2. Negotiated Brief (Environmental Type)

3. Research for practice two

Suffice to say that I’ve managed to get all of my printing and binding done, with just a report to write for RFP 2.

The binding for some of the punctuation layouts have been a mare, and sadly one of them went horribly wrong. I had the grids and paper all aligned but it hasn’t worked how I planned and I haven’t the time to reset it all again.

I’ve also thought it a good idea to start to take photos of my work space, to show how it changes with the work I’m creating. I’ll keep dumping those down to flickr.

*Note to self, find a new and better flickr widgit for the gallery!

Due to the way in which we communicate through speech, I am still interested in whether punctuation makes a sound. It isn’t something I’ve been able to follow easily, and was pretty much shot down when I tried to approach several deaf charities. The idea was to see whether punctuation could be visable through sign language, then through how we speak aloud.

I was interested in the noises that the deaf people made to one another, even though they couldn’t hear each other. That was a side tangent that I’d loved to have explored but felt it needed more developing of an idea and the etiquette of asking to be involved in such a private thing.

Anyway, another Guardian piece about voice.

I’ve yet to upload any of my bibliography from semester one and two. The list is massive and hopefully over the summer I can link the references to other places on the web so its easy to find.

However, my weekly sourcing of information has led me to a Guardian article on Lynne Truss’s ‘Eats shoots and leaves’ guide to punctuation. Naturally, one of my first books to read and main source for references, so for that I am grateful! Whether it needs to be a compulsary guide for undergraduates I’m not so sure…

Eats, Shoots and leaves

Fontshop – New newsletter out. I do like the retro style…

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6194713.ece

Not sure whether this is such a good idea…

A good friend pointed out this excellent article. (Thanks Jen)

I love exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Exclamation!

I recently visited Otley museum for the Environmental Type brief. It’s a lovely little place in much need of larger premises and an injection of money. Sadly, they are to be kicked out of the Civic Hall and as yet, the council hasn’t found them a new home.

They have a Wharfedale printing press,which is a lovely piece of letterpress machinery. (Check out the link above, a great blog and good explanation on the Wharfedale.)

So, the research has taken me in the route of signwriting and trying to understand the change between a craft and vinyl/3D lighted signs. The most obvious thing to have come about is that, architects don’t include signage into the designing of buildings. So often the relationship between signage and building is at odds.

The historical arts and craft has been interesting because the people who created the signs, where not typographers but just people who had a good eye, steady hand and some element of creative flair. This has been my favourite part of the research, to deleve into the history of where I live, see comparisons of one shop over a number of years. Maybe I’m too nostalgic for my own good!

Check out the gallery for the rest of the images.