Calligram Designers

An interview with Ben Duarri-Screen Prince  Donna Summer Ben Duarri-Screen Prince, 2013 Ben, can you tell us about your "Donna Summer" calligram work? The project was sponsored by someone working for Southern Fried Records, Fatboy Slim's label. The song was a personal favorite and I had a very deep connection with this song when I was little. I knew I had to get Donna's elegance in there and as I had only been using the copperplate dip pen nibs for a year or so and the Pentel brush pen for a few months the pressure was quite enormous but that got me to a state of doing things with a lose immediacy that comes with calligraphy. The image I drew in pencil as my template was a mash-up of lots of images of Donna's record cover shots and also heavily inspired by her psychedelic video where she does that wave dance move with her arms.This drawing contains the arms and hands more of her waist and is pretty big.  Printing the background layer in a blend ...

March 6 is the European Day of the Righteous to commemorate those who have stood up against crimes, humanity and totalitarism with their own moral responsibility. Righteous, Hope, Solidarity, Freedom, Gratitude, Forgiveness are just a few of the meaningful words that form this "tree of life" calligram.

The 4th International Forum on Food and Nutrition chose a tree calligram logo to visualize clearly its mission: to foster a better life and diffuse a sustainable well-being. 4th International Forum on Food and Nutrition November 28-29 - Milan, Italy sponsored by Barilla Center

Steve Jobs (1955-2011) Calligram design by Dylan Roscover Steve, here is a calligram for you made with the words of your inventions, visions and inspirational thoughts. With sincere love and gratitude from all of us designers.

Today, March 8th 2011, is the centenary celebration of the International Women's Day (1911-2011). We honor this special day with a gallery of calligrams where the woman, her beauty, strength, passion and force of nature are the main subjects. Enjoy! Motherhood and pregnancy Joni James Donna Summer Ben Duarri Screen Prince Oh, Julie (detail of the poster for the theatrical show "Il Blues di Malaussene") Laura Ruggeri 2010 Summer sale season campaign La Rinascente Calligram portrait Leslie Nichols "Go out " Advertisement for Woman's Day Magazine, 1953. All rights reserved. Federico Gene Advertising poster (70s) Vichy Water Advertising poster (60s) Lempereur Funny Girl - movie poster (60s)

It was a joy receiving this SMS for best wishes in 2011 from a person who doesn't even know I love calligrams! And I was surprised to see how the complete calligram of the boat is viewable in my old cellular with a little tiny screen (can you see the scratches?!). The rest of the message was: Boarding date: 2011 Destination: Happiness Luggage: Health, Love and Harmony Have a wonderful trip! Very charming best wishes calligram, don't you think? ;-) Maybe on top of the boat instead of the two L's (in lower case) the artist could put two 1's and the calligram best wishes boat would become even more appropriate for the 2011 best wishes. We can also call this form of calligram Ascii Art : "a technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable (from a total of 128) characters defined by the ASCII Standard...", says Wikipedia .

See how curvaceous body text is used for these calligrams featured on the tags of the 2010 Summer collection at la Rinascente in Milan, Italy! Maybe it's becuase they follow very curvaceous feminine bodies? Maybe it's becuase they follow the 60s' fashion trend for the 2010 Summer? No matter, the result is very appealing and catchy. It's always very inspiring to see how the visual communication technique of calligrams is used more frequently for business and marketing. PS "sconto" in Italian means "discount" and "saldi" means "sale"

Carpisa Summer 2010 collection chose to put a calligram in the shape of a tree on its new line Recycled . In the calligram you can read words like love , nature , recycling , bottle , planet , ecology , bag etc. Carpisa took these words seriously and decided to defend the environment choosing tyvek as a material for its line Recycled. Tyvek is in fact a fiber obtained by recycled bottles made of PET. It's a breathable membrane without toxic substances and completely recyclable as well. Have a wonderful trip with your Carpisa Recycled suitcase and... show off your calligram recycled bag!

by Rick Ligas I must confess that I would not ordinarily think of a calligram in terms of search engine results. Laura Ruggeri however would. In fact figuring out how a calligram could effect search engine results was part of Laura's thinking when she set about designing a calligram to celebrate her (first) 25 years as a graphic designer and I am happy that she involved me. Laura had the idea to create a "25th anniversary" calligram and post it as the home page of her website. At first it sounded straightforward: a block of text describing her projects would spell out the numbers "25" in color, but Laura wanted it to be more than that. In addition to the "25" calligram she also wanted the individual words to be links that showed corresponding examples from her portfolio - and the words would be something that she hoped the search engines would take note of, after all, she intends to be an active graphic designer for another 25 years. So, with this spec...

Eni transformed its famous and historic six-legged dog logo into a calligram advertising its "Master in Energy, Environmental Management and Economics" program at Eni Corporate University. The audience for this calligram is young, intelligent, creative, sensitive... students from universities called to be trained in strategic planning, business analysis, relationships with regulatory authorities, etc. in the specific context of energy and environment. The calligram is formed by hand-written words recalling the sixties. The six legs say (from left to right): internazionalità (internationality) ricerca (research) cultura (culture) rispetto (respect) formazione (education) sviluppo (development) The main part of the body of the dog is taken by the name of the company's educational facility "ENI CORPORATE UNIVERSITY" (notice the capitalization). The head is the company's name, "eni" while " energia " (energy) is reserved for the red spit flam...

by Joni James I started my journey in calligraphy when I was in my early 20's and living in Alaska. Often asked to make name place cards or inspirational quotes for people, I began taking classes when I returned to the Seattle area in 1984. I was always fascinated with calligrams but never really made any until this year. One of my favorite artists is Picasso, so I was thrilled when I did some searching for calligram information and discovered that Guillaume Apollinaire was a friend of his! For me, more then any other art form, making these calligrams gives me a calm like nothing else . I can feel the rhythm of the words as I create and the white space tells me what to do next. I'm so thankful to find other calligram artists! It's a beautifully unique form of art and can be used in so many ways! 1932 Ford Coupe Calligram This was made especially for my uncle and I sent it to him as a surprise recently. He was thrilled! Motherhood and Pregnancy Calligram...

This is a very beautiful calligram that visually carries the meaning of a degradable bag. One of the seven phrases reads: - Si degrada rapidamente con il calore (It degrades rapidly with heat), and another: - Senza rilasciare sostanze dannose per l'ambiente (Without releasing dangerous material in the environment). The visual analogy implies that the bag is degradable with a light breath of air. Thanks to Pharma Bag for its sensitivity to the environment and its choice of a calligram design to enhance their eco-friendly products.

Here is a 2010 calligram greeting created with TypeDrawing (iPod Touch) by Laura Ruggeri for the design firm LR Communication Design 's corporate greeting. Laura saw two smiley eyes and one nose in 2010 and she added a happy smile with the message " let's keep smiling " for the new year.

" May the new year bring us more love, togetherness and a nourishing light in our hearts " is the message I "heard" in my heart looking at this picture. A group of children, ice skaters, arrange themselves to form the number 2010 to welcome the new year at the Ice Skating Carnival in Shimla , India. (AP/Press Association Images)

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...

"ModernMantra is a series of 18 "text drawings" made in Indian ink on white paper. In a somewhat schematic fashion they portray sterile and depopulated interiors, often simply but properly furnished. One does not have to get very close to them to see that the drawings are really calligrammes, that the interiors are drawn with words that simultaneously describe what they depict." says Kim West in his text "The Mutant Nerd" in the catalog ModernMantra produced for the exhibition at Borås Konstmuseum (Sweden) in 2006. Thomas Broomé is the artist of these calligram interiors ModernMantra . He is a contemporary artist born in Malmö (Sweden) in 1971. View the calligrams of ModernMantra and seven new addition just presented in an exhibition at the Galeri Magnus Karlsson in Stockholm.

This is a plastic bag that "carries" a very meaningful statement. Designed by Thorbjørn Ankerstjerne while he was a student. I think this design could be included in the "Good Work Project" where good work happens when excellent and ethic meet . But so far it's included in the book New Packaging Design by Janice Kirkpatrick that features over 80 packaging designs from all over the world.

Here is another example of images as letterforms. The letters Y, O, and U, are formed by images of YOU. This is a screen shot I took from an online ad. It was late in the night and I did not notice from and by whom it was created. Maybe Facebook? Vodafone? Please, if you know more details, write a comment below, I will appreciate it. I can recall that you could roll over on the single image and a little pop-up opened to show the name and more details of the person. In this blog you can find other examples of images as letterforms . Let's notice what they have in common: - the letterforms are formed by the object or meaning of the word itself. In this case the word YOU is formed by individual "you-s".

by Ben Duarri-Screen Prince Joni Mitchell was the first portrait of a female I attempted, shortly after discovering the pointed pen nib used for copperplate and flourishing. Copperplate became the modern hand at the end of the 19th century and has since become a favorite for popular sign-writing and commercial graphics. A delicate and smooth flowing hand, it can be written quickly using one continuous line [unlike gothic script] and can be dressed down to a basic joined up writing or dressed up accentuating the loops and curves and because of the nature of the nib, when pressure is added, the line widens adding curve and sensuality to the words. These words, from A Case Of You on her hit album Blue , draws from the metaphor of her lover being like fine wine, “I could drink a case of you and I would still be on my feet”. However the song is not just a compliment, there is a sense of sadness, a splitting and ending of a relationship and the drinking in bars to numb the hurt...