Abstract Calligraphy Project

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Impressions Differenciated/Complexe Stylized/abstracted

This project started with realizing how your standard cursive “b” could be percepted in different ways.
On the one hand as a hand-written classic “b” with connections, which the form originated from or, on the other hand, as a whole new form. Be it an cursive “l” with an extra curl or that hook-ish thing I abstracted from it.

As someone interested in calligraphy I realized that this was how fonts evolved. One shape (Capitalis Monumentalis for example) can bei interpreted in many different ways and is adapted to many different requirements, just as writing speed, legibility, impressiveness or elegancy and not at least different writing tools.
The resulting letter itself – sometimes being quite far from it’s original basic form – is then percepted in many different ways by different people, who – without being aware of the letter’s origin – can interpret and abstract new basic forms, which will again have an influence on how they write the letter.

So what I did was replicating the process in an exaggerated way. I tried to find the most obscure basic forms in historic fonts, especially the overly decorated gothic ones like Bastarda and Rotunda and then adopted them to differented styles and tried to fit them back into other fonts.
(My mission was to make it as unreadable as possible)

For the last part I went on from a style I explored pretty early (Bastarda/Rotunda letters into geometric broad lines with 90°-curves) and figured how to carry things even further in this particular style (and make it even more illegible)