Michael Harvey’s Teaching Notebooks 1983–1995, part 2

ATLANTA 1986

There are no clues in the notebook pages that Michael gave me as to what this workshop was about, but it may have been another one devoted to Creative Lettering.

EXETER 1986 : Lettercutting
If my memory is correct, this workshop was part of a conference organized by lettering artist David Harris at Exeter College of Art & Design.

“Writing makes forms directly, the broad pen defining the edges as it moves
“Incising works towards the edges from the centre [sic]
“Engraving (of punches) works toward the edges from the outside”

The evolution of letters from brush written forms to pen written forms to typographic ones is a theme throughout Michael’s teaching. He has chosen the capital E because it has vertical and horizontal strokes with different kinds of serifs that change independently over time.

The two books Michael is citing are The Origin of the Serif: Brush Writing and Roman Letters by Edward M. Catich (Davenport, Iowa: The Catfish Press, 1968) and Schrift + Symbol in Stein und Holz by Sepp Jakob and Donatus M. Leicher (Munich: Callwey, 1995).

WASHINGTON, DC 1987

In part 1 of my posting of Michael’s teaching notes I quoted the comments here about the connection between Jane Austen’s writing and English lettering. I do not know what kind of a workshop they were intended for as this is the only spread he gave me.