This week I had a breakthrough in how I present my Photo Prayers, making the words all caps and making the words different sizes so they fit into a tight rectangle.
Posters from the wild west of the 1800s commonly used all caps lines side to side, as did the circus poster that inspired John Lennon to write “For The Benefit of Mr. Kite.”
I have a bronze plaque with a quote from Carl Jung that is set in this style.
Contemporary calligraphers often use this style but since my background is typesetting, not calligraphy, I went with what I know best.
The typeface, one of my favorites, is “Xavier” from Castcraft Software. That company is no longer in business, so I don’t know where this font can be purchased, or what it might be named. A great place to get typefaces identified is “What The Font?” on the MyFonts.com website.
I’ve been looking for a way to more closely integrate words with my photos, something other than the photo on top with the prayer under it. That works OK for email and websites but not for large prints.
For the last year, I’ve been looking at Japanese ukiyo-e prints. I like how those artists boldly place words inside colored rectangular blocks with frames drawn around them and place the word-rectangles in empty corners of the image.