Source File
It’s the source file for the new year’s signs — at least, the start. For years, it’s been bugging me that the webpage doesn’t totally represent my own, handcrafted “look.”
One graphic website offered images of “textured leather” as background, and I always like the look and feel of weathered leather, just, how does that translate to a digital medium?
I’ve been drawing shorthand glyphs, on charts, doing an odd chart by hand, then using the glyphs in names and conventions. My own hand drawn versions have shifted, much like handwriting changes over years, so have my versions of the glyphs.
sources file 1
Been at this a long time.
Previously, I mentioned a typewriter, an older, all-mechanical one. “Manual,” I think, is the term. I have a few words I typed up before I passed that tool onto a person who might actually use it, bit a survivalist buddy. Where I got the lower-case, typewriter-looking image I use for the current headers and business card. Analog. Old-school. I was also shooting for minimalist, and I’m unsure of how well I did. But I like it, and that’s what matters at the moment. No complaints; so there were a few, but I like the look.
A sparse, yet oddly sentimental appeal.
sources file 2
Working at the rock shop in Austin, before Xmas, I noticed the owner (Virgo) and manager (Scorpio) were moving stock around — a dictum — as family lore would have me believe, handed down from one of the grand masters in retail: “Always rearrange the display.”
I have seen very few, if any at all, “slow” days at the rock shop, in my residency there.
The hugely popular “Gaping Void” series, essentially, Rapidograph ink on the back of a business cards was a lurking influence.
Rapidograph 7-Pen Tech Pen Set
I can no longer recount the details. However, after the source file, after I spun out an even dozen images for the next year, I started to toy with the individual items. Teasing, stretching, collapsing, and adjusting the shading, the hue, the lighting.
On the back of business cards, the tiny white space begging for some kind of precise interaction. It’s a fun medium to toy with, but not something I plan to do for long. Think I’ll do a single year of symbols, and leave it at that. The first should debut January — or the last scope for this year, with its look at the year ahead.
That source file shows the glyphs — not exactly how I visualized them, but certainly close enough — as a starting point. Instead of a font that looks hand-lettered, I grabbed a digital scan of my own lettering. Seems like each year, I try and change the look, and anymore, I’m interested in less and less cluttering the page.
Less is more.
