Festina Lente
Lettering
Festina lente is a Latin oxymoron meaning "make haste slowly". This saying has been the motto of several important people, like the ancient Rome's emperor Augustus, and it was often given a visual form. As a matter of fact the Renaissance printer Aldus Manutius translated it into the symbol of a dolphin with an anchor and adopted it as his printer's mark. The Duke of Tuscany Cosimo I de’ Medici did the same by choosing a tortoise bearing on its shell a wind-filled sail as his emblem.
I decided to letter this maxim because I believe it being really current. Nowadays we all struggle with finding balance between movement and stasis, in a society that demonises stillness despite it being necessary for our wellbeing. This quote could be a reminder for us to strive for a still ambitious but more harmonious, slow, compassionate life.
THE PROCESS
I created the artwork entirely in Procreate on the iPad Pro.
After I drew some guidelines I started sketching in pencil and then used custom-built brushes to ink.
Here you can see a few steps of the refining process.
Thank you!
