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Letterforms, and the making of pages

Tag: #pen

The reed pen, in Van Gogh’s letters

Calligraphy · · 4 min read

The reed pen, in Van Gogh’s letters

Over nine hundred of Van Gogh’s letters survive, and the famous ones are written with the same cut reed he drew with. They are the best free lesson in what a broad-edged tool does when nobody is performing: a working hand, at speed, on cheap paper.

The broad-edged pen, and what it still teaches

Calligraphy · · 3 min read

The broad-edged pen, and what it still teaches

Nearly every serif on your screen is a frozen record of a flat nib held at an angle. Hold a pen at thirty degrees, write an O, and the thick and thin you get is the same modulation a type designer spends a year redrawing.