Monthly Archives: March 2013

Making of a Renaissance Book

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Yesterday I watched the first part of making a Renaissance Book. I was not aware of all of the craftsmanship that went into creating one small type letter. When the narrator was explaining all of the different parts of the letter mold the list of parts consisted of many more items then I had anticipated. It is so easy to change fonts in a word document or even to download a new font from the web. I definitely take this action for granted. I never really considered how the first type was created or the fact that someone had to invent all of the different styles and sizes of fonts we use today.

Lab Assignment

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I watched the print and metal pens segment and I found myself rather immersed in what was happening. I was impressed with how beautiful the writing was with a quill but something that I had never thought about before was how the quill eventually becomes soft and can break.

Another aspect of the video I enjoyed was the engraving process. It is a process that relies on so many minute details and I didn’t realize that a magnifying glass was necessary for the process. Then when they explained the copper plate and how to make a perfect print it surprised me that it is so difficult to get exactly what you wanted.

Through watching the segment I learned that the ways in which writing used to be performed was so intricate and I don’t think I ever thought about it being that difficult.

Telling a Story Through Pictures

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I thought the “Alice in Wonderland” work of art we saw was crazy. I had no idea what the artist was saying, but I’m sure they knew exactly what the “story” was telling. I also thought it was interesting to see how somebody thought of describing stories through scents. Some of them made “scents” (pun intended) and some of them didn’t.

make time to read

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I was recently just browsing the internet when I came across this article.  I think it is a really cute article about reading and making time for it.  One of the recommendations for making time for reading is to add it to your schedule.  I think that while it sounds ridiculous to schedule reading, today its almost necessary.  With our lives becoming increasingly more busy, I think that we often find ourselves saying we will make an effort to read yet we never actually do so.  I then came across this article which outlines why we as humans need to read.  The article states, “But perhaps even more significant is its emotional role as the starting point for individual voyages of personal development and pleasure.” I think that sadly, many people view reading more as a chore than an experience.

Calligraphy in Relation to Typography

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As I was walking through the library I came across a book entitled, The Elements of Typographic Style. Having just watched a documentary related to calligraphy, I decided to stop to take a look at it. Flipping through the first couple pages of the book it showed a variety of print styles such as renaissance, baroque, neoclassical, romantic,realist…etc. (Bringhurst 12-15). What was neat about it, however, was that rather than just presenting the text styles, the book also pointed out the differences in the angles and edges of the letters (in red) from one style to the next. Had the book not done this, it definitely would have been tough for me to see the small differences between some of the styles.

Intrigued by this, I decided to flip a few pages further through the book. By doing so I found the quote, “well-chosen words deserve well-chosen letters; these in their turn deserve to be set with affection, intelligence, knowledge, and skill” (Bringhurst 18). Although this quote is referring to typography it also seems very relevant to calligraphy. People now a days do not write (with pen and paper) with any real care at all how things look; for that matter, good handwriting seems to have become a lost skill to our generation. This is an unfortunate occurrence for our society. Seeing how beautifully the calligraphers were able to write with their fountain pens made me jealous. I wish that I had learned how to write with such flow, care, and precision. I wish that my writing could look as official and elegant as those of calligraphers.

The calligrapher in the documentary definitely wrote with this “affection, intelligence, knowledge, and skill” (Bringhurst 18) that Bringhurst was talking about, forming his words with the quality handwriting style that they deserved to be presented with.

Shakespeare–Short and to the Point

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One of the books we saw on Tuesday reminded me of a video that my AP English teacher showed my class in high school. The video she showed us was very much like what was described in this article. I found many of the books very interesting on Tuesday, but the little green Shakespeare book next to the cellphone R&J (Romeo and Juliet for anyone who didn’t see it) was particularly funny. It highlighted the story of Macbeth in about three or four sentences with some great graphics. I would love to find who makes the Short Attention Span series to look into buying some for myself.

Lab Assignment

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I watched The Making of a Renaissance Book for my lab assignment. The media that stood out to me the most as I watched the video was the music. It seemed to correspond to the relative pace of the work. It also always seemed to be playing as to represent the constant work required to make a book during this time.

The video, like the archives and EPI, was interesting because it created a detailed image of the process. Before watching the video, I pictured how the process looked based on Howard’s book, but the video gave a much more accurate image of the work and detail required to make a book.

What Constitutes Literature?

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The latest visit to the archives prompted me to think about what constitutes literature. Are words necessary to produce a literary work? Such a question never crossed my mind because I had assumed that all books had words, or at least symbols or pictures to convey the author’s message. Lafayette College, however, owns a chapter of Alice in Wonderland that has no words. The book is a collection of colorful pages. No words. No images. No symbols. I am not sure that anyone would be able to tell that it represents chapter five of the book except for the label at the beginning.

According to the dictionary on the dashboard of my Apple computer, literature is defined as, “written works, esp. those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit” or “books and writing published on a particular subject.” The key words here are written and writing, which this book lacked. No common message was conveyed. No story was told. The pages were beautiful and they were art, but I do not think the collection was an example of literature.

Literature is made up of language and language “implies boundaries. A word spoken creates a dog, a rabbit, a man. It fixes their nature before our eyes” (The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature). Did chapter five speak to you or were you as equally perplexed as I?