Calligram Designers

by Leslie Nichols Experimenting with text and image has become endless source of ideas and inspiration central to my studio practice. Letterforms create both spatial and literary passages, which provide a visual texture that is exciting and sometimes challenging to work with. It has been a natural evolution to use writing in my visual work. Informal sketches while doodling or writing letters to friends were my first calligrams. I began incorporating text in my fine art portraiture when I discovered a typewriter was an exciting image making tool. Experiencing the beauty and history of the English landscape first hand inspired my current paintings and prints. We lived at Harlaxton Manor in rural England for four months while my husband was a Visiting Professor at Harlaxton College. In these landscapes human presence is presented with text rather than by a plume of smoke, a village or man with cart. View more about Leslie Nichols and her work at www.NicholsStudio.com www.NicholsStudio.bl...

Type your word, draw your picture and get a calligram in few seconds with TypeDrawing with just a touch. It is so easy and fun! TypeDrawing is an application for iPhone and iPod Touch. Like calligrams, drawing with letters is what the application is all about. I was amazed the first time I tried it on my husband's iPod Touch! - I typed the sentence, Everything is all right, right now. - I chose a white background paper - I selected the font style, its size, color and opacity - and then just let the intuition flow and drew a vase of flowers, just with my index finger! Then - I saved it in an iPhoto Album - went into iPhoto and sent it directly to my husband as a sign of gratitude for introducing to me such an interesting and fun application. And all within few minutes. On Flickr there is a TypeDrawing Group Pool and it's clear how many people are enjoying and using their creativity with this tool. I am exploring it daily and I am finding it truly amazing. It allows an entirely...

Finally spring arrived showing its first splendor with the forsythia! I was walking this afternoon and saw the yellow forsythia around the corner... it reminded me the famous concret poem by Mary Ellen Solt, Forsythia, composed in 1965 and published in 1966. “The design of Forsythia is made from the letters of the name of the flowering shrub and their equivalents in the Morse Code. The text is part of the design.” ~ Mary Ellen Solt " Forsythia by Mary Ellen Solt was typographically concretized by John Dearstyne. In the introduction to Flowers in Concrete , George Zadek writes: “Traditionally the typographer has given form and order to words, thus serving both the writer and the reader. His problem is mainly one of clarity of communication, literary meaning, and hopefully aesthetic contribution to the art of the printed page. When publishing concrete poetry, it is sometimes difficult to draw a line between the contributions, as well as the final responsibilities, of the poet and...