Art Nouveau Letters with Paul Shaw

This class has been postponed due to Covid-19. Please stay tuned for updates!

This one-day workshop investigates the fluid, expressive, and idiosyncratic lettering created by Art Nouveau artists and designers in the 1890s and early years of the 20th century.

In the 1890s and early years of the 20th century artists and designers throughout Europe created lettering that broke free from traditional expectations of classical proportions, predictable placement of thicks and thins, notions of internal balance, consistent spacing, and legibility. Sometimes the letters undulated, swelled, or slithered. Serifs were abandoned. Other times they were packed together like sardines in a can or distorted to fill the spaces left by their neighbors. Concepts of stasis and harmony were jettisoned in favor of an emphasis on gestalt and gesamtwerk. Letters were seen as an integral part of a design, co-equal with illustrations and ornament. They were adapted and altered in response to different materials and techniques of fabrication. The Art Nouveau era was a moment of glorious freedom for letters.

Students will be introduced to the wide range of Art Nouveau lettering approaches and then focus on the work of the members of the Vienna Secession (Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Alfred Roller, Joseph Maria Olbrich, and more) and their mentor Rudolf von Larisch. We will analyze and explore the methods and techniques these artists and designers used, focusing on making individual letters subservient to the overall design. Students will create a small poster.

This class is open to all levels and does not require any prior experience with calligraphy using a broad-edged or pointed pen. WARNING: this workshop may be harmful to those who believe in the notion of perfect and eternal letterforms.

Date: Saturday, April 4, 2020
Time: 10:00am to 4:00pm
Price: $90 members/$110 non-members
Level: Beginner and all levels
Location: SVA Annex, 214 E. 21st Street (between 2nd/3rd Ave), Room 703A

 
 
 
 
 
 

MATERIALS LIST

  • Speedball B-2 and B-4 nibs

  • Higgins Eternal ink

  • Uniball fine pen or equivalent (black)

  • Mechanical pencil .5 mm lead

  • Kneaded eraser or white eraser

  • Ruler

  • Masking tape

INSTRUCTOR

Paul Shaw is a letter designer and graphic design historian. He is the sole proprietor of Paul Shaw / Letter Design, a studio specializing for thirty years in calligraphy, lettering and typography. Among his clients have been Clairol, Origins, Lord & Taylor, Campbell’s Soup, Cinzano, Vignelli Associates, and Pentagram.

Paul was formerly a partner in LetterPerfect, a digital type foundry based in Seattle. Since 1980 he has taught calligraphy, lettering, typography and graphic design history at a variety of New York area design schools. Currently he is at both Parsons School of Design and the School of Visual Arts. He writes on letter-related subjects for Print, Eye, Baseline, Letter Arts Review, and AIGA's Voice. His book Helvetica and the New York City Subway sold out in two months, with a trade edition planned to be published by MIT Press.

In 2002 Paul was a fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Finally, Paul is the reigning authority on W.A. Dwiggins, having spent 30 years researching his life and work.