what is exactly what you are asking for?
what does research-happy means?

Edward Johnston?
Edward M. Catich?
Hermann Zapf?

’Research-happy’ is I will admit is probably hyperbole. Now that I think about it again Carl Crossgrove had mentioned Hermann Zapf. I had known of Edward Johnston as a type maker not a caligrapher, but I am sure that wrong now. I’ll have to learn more about him & Edward M. Catich. What I really want to find today is folks who are still around & who I can talk or write to. I should have mentioned this in the 1st post.

depending what you are looknig for, or what you are interested in knowing, you could talk to,...

Sheila Waters,
Julian Waters,
Alice,
Peter Bain,
Paul Shaw,
Jerry Kelly,
Cara di Edwardo,

the list could go on and on...
Some of them might even read this posts,
so if you explain us more about what you are working on,
and what you want to find out, it might be easier for you to get better answers.

> so if you explain us more about what you are working on,
and what you want to find out, it might be easier for you to get better answers.

Right.

I am interested in letter shape alterations that are made because of inter-letter interactions of two, three or more letters. These might occur either consciously/deliberately; especially in common words like ‘the’; or as a semiconscious reflexive kind of aesthetic choice as a calligrapher writes. My interest in this kind of alteration of letter-forms comes out of some older typophile threads having to do with ideas about ‘bouma*’ and ‘notan’ and type. When the idea of notan came up it was in the context of making better type for immersive reading (not calligraphy) by being aware of notan - the white and the black shapes - not just the black. At the time it struck me that this kind of awareness would have to be very important to European language calligraphers and probably could have an imapct on good typography as well now that scripting is available in open type. I already knew it was important to Asian language calligraphers especially since they have to make significant alteration to elemental forms to make a unified chinese characters or Japanese ‘Kanji’. In Gerrit Noordzji’s book ‘The Stroke’ he talks about getting the need to achieve white/black balance a as well. Of course the tasks are different in some significant ways but the concern with notan is present in both kinds of calligraphy.

But it isn’t so much the broad idea of b/w balance or notan that I want to explore; it’s specifically the ways in which a European language calligrapher might modify letter forms and spacing to achieve good that notan; especially for longer running texts. And while some options for achieving this effect overlap to a certain extent between typography and calligraphy (for instance - ligatures) the set of options for getting good notan is different and perhaps bigger for calligraphers.

However, because in general calligraphers have been made to work in a more decorative and expressive context rather than in an immersive text context since metal type took over the job of long texts it might seem that it’s an academic who has spent time analyzing old manuscripts who could help me. But I have a hope that this idea is incomplete and that I might also find find some calligraphers who have noticed this process of letter alteration & spacing for notan in their work and who are interested in discussing it.

* ’bouma’ being the overall shape & impression created by a whole word vs the individual letter shapes - look up threads here for a more complete idea.

Eben,

I just attended a presentation by calligrapher Carl Rohrs, and one of his interests is the sort of context-specific alterations to letterforms that happen with hand-lettering and calligraphy. He doesn’t focus a lot on text, or on type design, because his business is signage and display graphics, but he would probably be excited to discuss your idea, and probably more excited to find and share examples of these alterations. Should I point him your way? I think you could say there is a display parallel of the Notan we’ve been discussing; letterers and calligraphers do arrange things for compositional balance and harmony, which is relevant.

One person you should definitely get in touch with is Andre Gurtler. His book* alone pretty much establishes his prowess in “theoretical calligraphy”, while his fonts prove that he’s not a slave to chirography - so he strikes a balance that would probably be very useful to you. Unfortunately, my email address for him no longer seems to work.

* For reference only, not necessarily a recommended purchasing channel:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3721203208/ref=sr_11_1/104-0842604-0595...

I can think of some others, but among the living most of those who appear to be interested in calligraphy theory are in fact merely desiring to formalize the theory of conventional calligraphy, so they would be just as likely to hold you back as motivate you.

hhp

And if you can convince him to spend some time on the Latin side (he’s an Arabic “calligraphy theory” expert) Vlad Atanasiu would be invaluable: AFAIK he’s the only person on the planet who has created convincing computational models of calligraphy (plus he’s friggin’ brilliant).

hhp

Wow! Thanks you guys!

David Kindersley, not easy to read but he certainly falls into your category.

Thanks!

“Optical letter spacing for new printing systems” (1976) - Right?

Unfortunately he died in 1995. He does have a son who works in stone too.

Also, I found this snippet from one of his students:

“I use a brush. In David Kindersley’s workshop we didn’t use brushes but drew our letters on the material with a hard pencil. But that was because we didn’t know then how Roman and Greek inscriptions were laid out. It was only much later that I discovered the historical basis for the feeling I had about the use of brush rather than pen.

Then, quite by chance, I came across a book written by a man called Edward Catich, The Origin of the Serif. Catich was a well respected American sign writer who had gone to Italy to research incised Roman letters. His research showed that all those precise and immaculately cut inscriptions had been laid out with a brush using single strokes. The book just blew my mind away. I had never been easy with a pen, but that was the way Kindersley’s workshop had taught me to work. I was still drawing everything out. When I worked it was Kindersley’s voice that I heard, ‘My Master’s Voice’. But all the same, I could see that my letter shapes were tight – that I was ‘obeying orders’ rather than finding my own way. I knew I had to find a freedom in my work if it was to develop. It was Catich’s book which showed me the way. Nevertheless that realisation was terrifying. I knew that Chinese calligraphers, who work with the brush, begin their training at the age of seven! I bought every kind of ink, brush and paper and started practising. I would use light water colour and turn the paper over and over again to save on the cos, but I still ended up with enough lettered paper to be able to wallpaper the whole house if I had wanted to! For two years of my life every spare moment went into this practice. I had to find out for myself how it was done – there was no one being taught this time. One day I woke up and knew I had learned enough to be able to use the technique in my work.”

http://www.art-outside.com/art-outside/article.php?ID=246

It makes me want to go look at the Catich book...

Catich is indeed a useful read. Know however that many
accomplished actual lettercarvers (which he wasn’t)
think he was wrong about many important things.

Kindersely can teach us much more than Catich.
A brush fetish should not get in the way of that.

hhp