Gilding the Lily

Page 3

Making Calligraphy with InDesign
1: It really is this simple.
2: Type in your text.
3: Set the font to a calligraphic style of your choosing.
4: Set the Drop Cap to 2 lines.
5: Highlight the drop cap with the text tool and then click
“convert to outlines”.
6: Add a gradient to the fill of the drop cap and if needed
add a 0.25pt stroke to outline it.
Note that the drop cap is now an “inline graphic” and will
move with your text maintaining perfect spacing.

Making Calligraphy with Illustrator A setting of 1 Corinthians 13 using Illuminated Capitals made from CorelDRAW and page adornments from the same program. In Illustrator you can choose motifs such as the flowers and convert them into a Pattern brush so that they may be run along a curved path in a random manner. The whole page was executed in a matter of minutes and could be rapidly modified to other colour schemes and texts. Below is a spiral, made using Illustrator.

Sources of inspiration

Books

There are countless books on calligraphy as well as specialist magazines. Some examples are:

The Encyclopedia of Colour Calligraphy
Author: Mary Noble, Adrian Waddington
Publisher: Search Press Ltd
Publication Date: 06/03/2003
ASIN / ISBN: 1903975859
Taschenbuch
176 Pages
£6.79 Amazon

The Encyclopedia of Calligraphy Techniques:
A Comprehensive A-Z Directory of Calligraphy
Techniques and a Step-by-step Guide to Their Use
Author: Diana Hardy Wilson
Publisher: Search Press Ltd
Publication Date: 30/01/2002
ASIN / ISBN: 085532998X
Taschenbuch
192 Pages
Amazon £7.70

Religious texts

The holy scriptures of various religions – The Bible (Christian and Jewish), Quoran (Muslim), Adi Granth (Sikh), Rig Vida (Hindu), Zend-Avesta (Zoroastrian) and so on, all provide ample sources of quotations, although, if it is not your native religion or language, it is unlikely that you will get by without some local advice!

From the Bible there are lists of quotations on the web, suitable for love and marriage, typified by the ever-popular 1 Corinthians 13. The important thing is that a little research will yield quite a lot of options, just make sure that you have your client’s agreement before you devote time to preparing an album page.

Poems

Outside a religious context, there are tons of love poems, Shakespeare and so on. Here it is likely that your bride will have some views. You might even consider presenting your couple with a book of love poems as an engagement-sitting gift – nothing like giving them plenty of time!

Family Tree

Why not put an illuminated family tree at the head of your album showing the joining of two families? Let the couple do the legwork and you can make the compilation of the artwork almost automatic.

Coats of Arms

If you can obtain the correct coats of arms for both sides of the wedding you could decorate the front of your album with these. Taking care to observe any copyright issues you might also create your own using Adobe Illustrator or CorelDRAW.

Illuminated Design

You start with a blank page, which can be quite a scary proposition. It may help to study the ancient works, for which there are plenty of reference resources. For example Googling for “The Book of Kells” generates lots of hits including many quality reproductions. “The Lindisfarne Gospels” yields a similar number of quality references. For a much more modern approach try looking at the work of Hassan Massoudy, the Iraqborn, French calligrapher, who does some really special work using the fabulously “scripty” Arabic letters. His style, however, would blend well with any modern, high-key album and could be adapted to English lettering.

Traditional illuminated design includes a number of motifs including various griffins, vultures, and gargoyles, along with complex interweaving of Celtic knots. Human and animal faces are also interwoven with the scrolling designs, usually quite discretely. All opportunities seemed to be taken to weave in circular motifs and geometric rosette circles. This was taken totally over the top on some capitals, the letter “P” of The Book of Kells being an example; you can make your own mind up but this writer’s view is that it is a couple of stops of embellishment too far. Just because it is old does not mean it is good; the monks had to fill their hours with some task or other! The number of manuscripts and books pulped to make glue, after the rise in ink-on-paper printing, is quite devastating – some glorious material must now be holding ancient chairs together!

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Photo Quote: The camera is no more an instrument of preservation, the image is. - Berenice Abbott