Rene, the type of artwork most commonly associated with Scandinavian culture -- at least in the U.S. -- is rosemaling. These are brightly colored floral patterns, typically hand-painted by amateurs onto wood (furniture mostly).

Stephen's example, while not rosemaling, is definitely a good one as well and might be a better source of dingbat inspiration. Good luck!

By the way, I really like your font.

Stephen: did you buy a new pair of boxers in Sweden or something? :-)

>and the backside of a very nice girl I know.

I guess if you're going to take photographs of the backsides of very nice girls, it helps if you know them.

Hi John,

'I'm affraid' that is exactly what I need. I really like it, but it so 'kitsch'. Ugly in a good way.
I see some very nice ornaments coming up.

Regards,
Ren

Ren

Hi Gerald,

Thanx for your input. I've also asked my ex, she's Finnish, and also said the Norwegan flower ornaments would be to much. They don't mean anything to her, she said. She herself suggested something from the Vikings. That was my first thought also, but I realised too that it could be too prototype. She also suggested using the ear-marking of the raindeer, but that's a little too abstract for me:
http://tuikku.urova.fi/avoin/poronhoito/merkitys.htm
That's an alfabet for it self, but not enough decorative.

Personally I liked the birds under the trees on your site. Something like that would be great. If you have more suggestions, I have time.

I've been in Finland once and it was great. My ex's parents live in Rovaniemi, very close to the north pole as I could feel. Perhaps I visit Finland again. I liked it a lot. I'll also visit the 'Santa Pukki' again (is that spelled correctly?).
Who did invent the sauna by the way? ;-)

Love your way of working with ornaments, by the way.

Regards,
Ren

I would not dismiss Viking. In the case of prototype you could certainly do worse. Viking motif is powerful.

Ear marking, I guess you heard! I was hoping to purchase a reindeer to get around with. However they eat moss. Houtsk

That's interesting that rosemaling isn't really "authentic" Scandinavian art anymore.

Most of the Scandinavian immigrants came to my state of Minnesota in the late 19th and very early 20th Centuries, and they brought it with. It was a very "Swedish grandma" thing to do. But if you were to ask a typical Minnesota Scandahoovian, they'd swear up and down it was the real deal. Well, I guess Europe has left us behind again. Damn it!

John,

It is the real deal. Nordic people are sea people, they get around. Still do. Ornaments are just a broad topic. I wish I had my hands on historical showings of "Arabia" china products. A distinquished Finnish pottery. Their museum is quite the place. If you get to Finland don't miss it.

It would take you through time zones. Quite the material. Unfortunately they closed down their hand painting department since I moved here. Things are moving the way of Nokia.

Gerald, the Metropolitian Museum of Art had a quarterly about ceramics and all the early colonial pottery was painted in China based on designs from the Scandinavian region. Very interesting. Dan

Dan,

That certainly is interesting. I wonder if there are any copies to be had. Thank you for the tip. As you know I am writing a book about ornaments, typographical and otherwise. My present focus, at the moment, is on traditional source readily available to me in Scandinavia.

My working title is "Ornament and Function." This is based on some of my original thoughts. http://www.lanstontype.com/FishBasket.html


The reason I asked about knitting: Knitting clearly illustrates my point about the subtle aspects of ornament. Also illustrates ornament as function, and the structure of mans' day to day activities. See second link.

http://www.lanstontype.com/SpiderWeb.html

Ornament is not necessarily just "icing on a cake." Pretty little things tied on like a woman's bonnet, or masking an otherwise ugly face with lipstick. Mind you, that has useful function too.

That ornaments have strong purpose, that they have served man and nature profoundly well. They do not deserved to become orphaned ancestors. They are building blocks of society, building blocks of nature.

That is why I am so delighted Ren

Danish stuff:
a classic: http://www.royalcopenhagen.com/copenhagen/webapp/news?show=604#
You can lift elements of of this I think.

Maybe the ornaments ought to be furniture or pinetrees or Aurora Borealis-inspired stuff, (the patterns on) Swedish Dalar-horses (ask Stewf, he must have had encounters with them by now. Or any of the Swedes.) Norwegian sweaters could have usable elements too. hmmm, what else is there? Something woody?

Spirals. (think viking ornaments here, not that that really defines Scandinavia today.) By the way, Ase-tro (Thor, Odin, Freya and the lot.) has just been accepted as an official religion in Denmark.

Actually, a Dalar Horse itself would be a great ornament for your typeface.

Stewf? what are you? Some sort of chameleon? You already tamed one! And you have even know its real Swedish name!

By the way, here's a bit of viking ornament.
http://www.nationalmuseet.dk/sw790.asp
you may be directed to something through this:
http://www.fornsidr.dk/links_uk.html

Gerald,

Arabia. A distinquished Finnish pottery... Unfortunately they closed down their hand painting department since I moved here.

Say it ain't so!!!! We've got Arabia's Valencia, which in my opinion is the best of the hand painted stuff (at least for the last 25 years or so). We mix it with Arabia's 24h (we couldn't afford a whole Valencia set). Gerald I think you probably are alluding to some of the patterns with a fruit/floral motif?

These plates make oatmeal look gourmet:

Over the top: Expresso cups and saucers:


Randy

Here's a thought, Rene -- why not do a Futhark (runic) version of your font? It wouldn't be very useful but it would be a fun addition that would help "brand" the font. Plus, it wouldn't be that difficult to do.

Wow John, that's a cool idea. I found already some info on the Futhark, but couldn't seem to figure out how it works. Perhaps it's worth the trouble to find it out. Perhaps I can make a cool expert type with it.

I found some ornaments that I like from the Vikings. I'm strongly thinking about using the spirals or snake-kind-of ornaments. I'm only not sure if I can really make them to work like a pattern. I would like that they outgrow the only-ornament state, they should also be able to work as a complete background pattern. Any suggestions Gerald?

These images jumped to my attention:







Ren

Ren

I found already some info on the Futhark, but couldn't seem to figure out how it works.

See the Runic code chart at the Unicode site to see what characters you need to add to your font to support Futhark. Unfortunately, the vast majority of books on Runes are occult and New Age bollocks; try to find an academic study. The Omniglot entry for Runic is quite thorough.

The thing with runes is, that they changed over the years. From about 1150 to 1450, when they went out of use, they mimicked the latin alphabet. (With which it coexisted.) These are called 'stungne runer'.

I see much to comment on. Unfortunately I am in a work infested invironment. Don't you wish people would just give you their money and go away?

I find it vulgar that they expect you to actually do something.

I have found myself an architect that I love, his work I mean. Otherwise it would be a peculiar unpredictable love, he is dead.

Eliel Saarinen, the most famous of Helsinki's architects. Not to be confused with the work of his more modern son.

Has anyone ever visited his house and studio in Finland? Speaking of ornaments!

>I see much to comment on. Unfortunately I am in a work infested invironment. Don't you wish people would just give you their money and go away?

Gerald, funny that you speak of that. I have right now a client here and we were just talking about that too. He's a solo artist and has the wish that he gets his monthly payment and then they should leave him alone. He was thinking it would be very nice that that is accompanied by a sentence like: "thank you for living", or "we thank you for working for our company", or "here's the money, and now be quiet".

Ren

I still think you should go for the Dalar horse though.

One thing I noticed from John H's Omniglot link -- and had never noticed before, even though it's glaringly obvious in retrospect -- is that Icelandic gets the thorn and eth from Futhark. Now we're way off topic!

Randy,

I am still in a great rush.

I am going to mention your China. That is the same set I began collecting just before Arabia folded up their hand painting department tents.

I drink coffee & tea from the same series you have shown. In fact a cup sits at my elbow.

You should invite me over for dinner. I don't steal silverware, but!

Gerald

> From about 1150 to 1450, when they went out of use, they mimicked the latin alphabet.

Kenn, I'd love to get my hands on a good "before-and-after" image of this shift - I'd use it in a future presentation (something like "Latinization, and how to fight it"). Could you help me out?

hhp

I scribbled down the latinized runes in my sketchbook at Nationalmuseet, I didn't draw the runes that these evolved from as I was mainly interested in 'the end of runes'. But I'm sure they will help you if you contact them. http://www.nationalmuseet.dk/sw73.asp
If you use the form 'Navn' means 'Name' and 'Emne' is 'Subject.'
Or you could simply email them: fogf@natmus.dk

It might interest you that after Runes the Danes used romans as uppercase only, fraktur was used for both upper- and lowercase.
During a short period they may have had all three alphabets.
Boy are we off topic...

And since we are off topic: go find a Finnish cemetery, they rake nice patterns in the gravel on the graves. (the one I visited was in Tornio, customs may be different further south.)

Thanks!
And yes, I remember seeing a photo of a wood-carved Nordic sign (right here on Typophile) that mixed Roman and blackletter.

hhp

Back to Ren

I definitely get a nordic vibe from his font. Sans, large bowls.

Hrant, did you see John Hudson's link above to the Omniglot site? That site shows something of an evolution of Futhark.

I'd only skimmed it - I'll look deeper. Thanks.

hhp

I guess Gerald ment this:

http://www.nba.fi/MUSEUMS/HVITTR/kuvia.htm

Art Nouveau (or Jugend) was very popular in Finland. Here is some illustrations and ornaments by Akseli Gallen-Kallela for Kalevala:

http://www.artpages.com/gallery/agk/index.htm

But if you want to keep it strictly scandinavian, I think Norway had also very strong Art Noveau.

The font looks good, and nordic, by the way.

> http://www.nba.fi/MUSEUMS/HVITTR/kuvia.htm

Wow, that Ruokasali is a major party room.

hhp

The 'Latinisation' of Futhark mainly involved extension and re-ordering of the sign set to match the set of Latin graphemes, so one could write Futhark as a one-to-one transliteration of contemporary spelling. An interesting aspect of this is the addition of dots to create new consonants. All in all, this 'Latinised' Futhark doesn't look very Latin. One could argue that the changes to Futhark kept it alive as part of the culture for 600+ years after it ceased to be used to regularly write a living language.

John's right. I re-read my earlier posts and I wasn't specific enough, the 'latinisation' was of the sounds, not the letterforms.
Futhark was used to write latin texts too.

Part of what kept Futhark alive was also the occult use of runes. It's important that the language didn't die, only the writing system.

Hrant, the wood carving was in the "Early Swedish Sans" thread somewhere.

BTW those ear-marks are interesting, has anyone got info on them in English?

Ren

That's a shirt actually, and the backside of a very nice girl I know.

Kenn's right! How could I forget about the dalah