Love Letters

This is me, age 17, at the South East Essex Technical College evening class in 1962, holding up our collaborative creation; I did the S’s.
This is me, age 17, at the South East Essex Technical College evening class in 1962, holding up our collaborative creation; I did the S’s.

This was my response to Grafik Magazine: Back in the black-and-white early 60s, I was an aimless, frustrated teenager trying to find an outlet for what I felt was an inner creative vocation, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. In between a series of mind-numbingly boring jobs, I plucked up the courage to join an evening class. It was called Calligraphy and Illuminated Lettering. Sounds archaic, I know, but it was in that very class, on many a dark winter’s evening, that I fell in love with letterforms.

Week after week, I practised until I knew every nook and cranny of a character. Later, I graduated to typefaces and had many affairs with those 26 little characters.

Baskerville 169 italic ampersand.

If I had to name one of my favourite typographical mistresses, I’d be torn between the Baskerville 169 italic ampersand (above) and the equivalent in Caslon Old Style. They are both so curvaceous and sensual; they always give me a thrill. I first used the 169 italic on a book cover in 1965.

The title was The Tree & The Flood. I sandwiched the little beauty between the strapping shafts of Schnellfetter Grotesk caps (a typeface I used to cut out from the pages of Twen magazine). The Baskerville 169 italic ampersand complemented those tall, robust figures perfectly.

In homage to these two eternal stunners, I created two T-shirts in 2008 using the Baskerville 169 italic ampersand, so that I could wear her close to my heart. And on the other, Schnellfetter Grotesk. Here they are, 17 years on, still in action.

For me, type has always been an emotional thing. I can be unexpectedly moved by the quiet poetry of letters arranged on a page, their weight, rhythm and the space they occupy. In these heated days of breakneck technological change, I find it heartening to picture William Caslon and John Baskerville in their workshops, patiently shaping the typefaces that would come to bear their names. They could never have imagined that, more than 270 years on, their handiwork would still be with us, used, loved, and every bit as fresh and meaningful as when it first left their hands.