It’s been pretty busy since the start of 2012. I’ve been working on a mix of logo design, calligraphy and web projects. For various reasons it will be a few months before some of the web sites go live but, as they are good projects, I wanted them in my portfolio as soon as possible.

Rather than add them as new projects to my web site, I decided to design a case studies microsite using a responsive design to showcase them. This way they could be viewed on a variety of devices including mobile, tablet and a desktop computer (and I could improve my HTML5/CSS3 skills). For the homepage I used one of new typefaces (work in progress), Segaro Book and drew some vignettes to complement the lettering.

Below are three examples of the case studies design at various screen sizes.

Below: Responsive web design for screen sizes above 960px

Left: Responsive web design for screen sizes below 650px

Right: Responsive web design for screen size between 651px and 959px

Horsearch

Horsearch is an new online marketplace that brings together buyers and sellers of horses (private & trade). They needed a new identity and front-end design.
http://www.ulganate.com/spring-2012/casestudy-1.php

Besttipping

Besttipping is a unique online service for monitoring horse racing tipsters. I was approached to give their website and identity a facelift.
http://www.ulganate.com/spring-2012/casestudy-2.php

Albion Beatnik

A new logo and WordPress website for The Albion Beatnik Bookstore, an independent bookshop located in Oxford.

http://www.ulganate.com/spring-2012/casestudy-3.php

Pitch for holding page

A pitch for a holding page design. Uses CSS3 & media queries to repurpose the design for web, tablets and smart phones

http://www.ulganate.com/spring-2012/casestudy-4.php

Need help with your web design?

I am passionate about design and believe intelligent creative work can make a difference to your brand or company. Good design not only makes your business more attractive, it can also focus your message, add credibility and, ultimately, increase your sales.  I am available for all types of web design projects and can be contacted on 01473 723764 or through the contact form.

Independent record label Ramp Recordings were looking for some hand-drawn calligraphy for the packaging design and asked me to send over some sketches. First of all, I did a Google image search for Retinal Waves to see if I could any inspiration and was immediately struck by the graphs of oscillating waves. The stylised copperplate at the bottom  of Fig 1 is directly influenced by the shapes of the retinal waves and this the style that was chosen.

As well the artist and title, I produced the track listings and copyright information, which was applied to the packaging on both CD and 12″ vinyl.

Fig 1: Initial sketched ideas

Figs 2–4: Examples of copperplate lettering on CD packaging

You can listen to a few samples of the tracks here at Boomkat.

Whether you need lettering for packaging or a book jacket or perhaps you have a poem or a dedication and want some personalised calligraphy – why not get in touch and make my fingers tingle.

There’s been a fair bit of interest surrounding the trailer for the upcoming linotype film. After watching the clip, a wave of nostalgia splashed over me sending me scuttling upstairs to my boxes of type books and ephemera under the bed (there used to be man-smut but once the kids came along it was all transferred to the loft for safety).

I remembered that I had some old Linotype Matrix newsletters and in the course of fudging around came across this little gem entitled Edward Philip Prince, Type Punchcutter by C. V. Avis, published in 1967. The plain grey dust jacket, now somewhat frayed and battered with its spaced lowercase, doesn’t promise much, but this is nonetheless a charming little book; cream laid paper, generous margins, typeset in Linotype Venezia (based on the original cut by Prince for George W. Jones) and of course, most importantly, the subject matter.

Edward Philip Prince (1846–1923) was a punchcutter to the stars, including illustrious figures such as Count Kessler, George W. Jones, Emery Walker and William Morris, along with several private presses and some of the bigger type foundries. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Prince has largely been overlooked and forgotten – this is probably one of the few books about him (there may be another by George W. Jones). For the author, it was obviously a labour of love.

There are ample examples of Prince’s work, although the designs range in quality from beautiful to workmanlike and occasionally downright ugly. By his own admission Prince was not a designer but ‘a craftsmen who carried out other men’s designs‘, so this is not a criticism of his work. Two fonts that caught my eye were Cranach-Hamlet and the elegant Doves Roman (shown below).

A delightful touch, peeking through its protective sheet of tracing paper, is an actual smoke proof of three characters cut (or partially cut) by Prince for the Doves Roman but rejected early on in the process.

On a final note, and I’d read this elsewhere (Matthew Carter perhaps), was the fact that, on average, only one punch per day could be cut. In this digital age where it’s not unfeasible to create a whole font in a day which could then be sent to the far corners of the world within a matter of seconds – would we have the patience to cope with such a slow pace of progress?

Doves Roman Revival

Recently, I found out that 7th Seal Type are releasing a Doves Roman Revival (along with Edward Johnston’s Doves Titling) in OpenType format including alternative glyphs & ligatures and accented characters. I’ve had a few looks and it looks super! I think that all involved have worked really hard on research and treating the whole project with the reverence it deserves. It can be too easy to criticise these revivals, but in this instance I think 7th Seal Type have got it spot on and, personally, I applaud their efforts. The Doves Roman punches have been metaphorically fished out of the River Thames at last! To see the Doves Roman revival and read more background information on the project check out their web site: http://7thsealblog.wordpress.com/2011/09/11/ss-doves-revival/

Fig 1: Examples of monograms that worked naturally

Fig 2: Example of a monogram that needed extra revisions

Recently, I had a slightly unusual request to produce a monogram that could double up as both a single design and be split apart into individual letters. The combined letters were ‘A&P’; this would also be used as a separate ‘A’ and a ‘P’.

So I thought I’d share my thoughts on designing a monogram and a step-by-step explanation of my process. But what exactly is a monogram?

Definition of a monogram

My personal definition of a monogram is simply two or more letters that link together to form a device. Wikipedia has a more in-depth article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogram

The brief

Before I start, I glean as much information from the client as possible about their preferred style (roman, script, flourished etc).  They may already have very fixed ideas about what they want, be open to suggestions or occasionally it can be difficult to get any feedback. Sometimes they have seen a monogram on my calligraphy website and want a similar design.

Sketching the monogram

Fig 3: Sketching the monogram

I begin, as I always do, with a series of rough ideas; quick pencil sketches to get the ball rolling. I normally try to get down at least three to four different ideas for the first round. I don’t worry too much about quality at this stage; there’s no point in trying to make the drawings too polished until the basic design has been approved.

The sketches are scanned into the computer and e-mailed to the client to peruse over and give their feedback. If they don’t like any of the ideas I try to pin down the problem and start the sketching process over again.

However, if one or two of the ideas resonate then there are two ways to move forward. The first route is sketch a few more variations on the chosen theme and re-send them to the client. Or I may feel that the design is close enough to start artworking it.

Artworking the monogram

For the next stage I use a computer drawing program and my preference is Adobe Illustrator (I use this at some point for a lot of my digital type/lettering work) as it is vector based. Without going into technical details, this means the curves can be manipulated with precision and the design can be enlarged or reduced without loss of quality.

First of all I place the sketch into Illustrator, make a new layer and start tracing the outlines using the pen tool. Sometimes I’ll add a few guidelines to help but on the whole I try to judge by eye. I trace round the outlines fairly quickly, building up the shapes in chunks. To speed up the process I copy and paste any shapes that are the same or similar. The sketch layer is switched off and I begin the process off bending and coaxing the outlines, using the bezier handles to manipulate the curves.

The illustration below shows the bezier curves in Illustrator.

Fig 4: Example of a monogram design in Illustrator

If you want to find out more about how to use bezier curves in Illustrator visit these two links:
http://veerle-v2.duoh.com/blog/comments/illustrator_pen_tool_exercises/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3mtWgta_gM&feature=related

The monogram is now starting to look more like a finished piece. For this particular project I had to produce a number of variations. My initial idea was to design the A and P in such a way that when they were placed together the ampersand would be formed from the swashes of the two letters. The client liked the idea but was unsure about the shapes of the individuals letters, especially the ‘P’, so a number of variations were drawn up.

Fig 5: Variations of the monogram design at artwork stage

The final monogram

The client finally chose from one of the variations shown above. I make one final edit, tidying up any loose ends; making sure the curves are smooth, the stroke thicknesses are even and the design is balanced. The monogram is then saved in various file formats: eps, png, and jpg (and if the client requests it, psd). Below is the finished monogram with the individual letters.

Fig 6: The finished monogram

Commission your own monogram

If you would a unique monogram designed for your own use (they look great on stationery, as a logotype or a tattoo design), a special event such as a wedding or to mark an anniversary call Michael on 01473 723764 or use the contact page.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone.

ulga is now mobile! Small but perfectly formed, the new ulga mobile web site makes it easy for you to keep up-to-date with news from ulga HQ wherever you are. The site also features a bite-size selection of ulga‘s latest projects.

Mobile web design in Ipswich, Suffolk

More and more people are using mobile devices to view the internet.  If you are small business looking for a mobile web site in Ipswich, Suffolk then give Michael a call on 01473 723764 or 07544 998 291 and find out how ulga can get your business moving.

Mobile url: http://m.ulganate.com

Autumn may be just around the corner, but here at ulga HQ there’s still a mighty chunk of summer love in the air.

Beards, Flares, Dragons & Letters is a collection of this summer’s brightest moments all rolled into one neat little package. Take a quick butchers below – or indulge yourself. Download the PDF and take a closer look at the treats on offer.

BFD&L is packed full of summer loving – hot passionate design to brighten up those long dark evenings. Get back into the holiday groove with a rollcoaster ride of fonts, lettering and illustration. Every single letter, curve, swash and beard has been lovingly created for your pleasure and enjoyment. There’s even a dragon to keep the barby burning.

The flares are on and they’re looking good. I’m Stayin’ Alive with the Bee Gees. So go on, enjoy. Crack open a party pack and splash on the sun cream. Summer’s back – dive into the ulganation.

For a long time I’ve been itching to design a new sans-serif family but never seemed to get it off the ground. I designed Charlotte Sans (at Letraset) many moons ago at the start of the digital age. It’s still popular but I never got the chance to really develop it into a full-fledged family.

Recently though I was commissioned to design a new logo (and a new website, which is work in progress) for a client and decided to draw a bespoke font for the project. I tried out various examples and eventually they settled on a condensed italic style.

However, one of the rejected styles was a variation on Charlotte Sans and this also provided a perfect opportunity to work up the design into a full alphabet. It’s early days and these examples are first drafts, so there are still some bumps and shapes to clean up.

The first stage is to draw up light, book, semi-bold and bold variants along with corresponding italics. I hope to finish the family sometime late in 2012. After that I plan to start work on a condensed version and finally a semi-sans too.

To see more of my work-in-progress fonts visit my page on Kontain

If you are looking for wedding calligraphy; calligraphy for family trees, poems, certificates, invites; monograms and lettering then take a peek.

Visit calligraphicgills

The new design is lighter and the homepage now shows more recent projects. I also have a calligraphy web site at www.calligraphicgills.me.uk, showing a range of calligraphy, monograms and lettering.

WordPress CMS

After using WordPress for some recent projects, I decided to use WordPress for ulga and dropped Drupal. There was nothing really wrong with Drupal – it’s a powerful CMS and can do some lovely things – but I felt WordPress had a nicer feel to it and for smaller, simpler web sites it had the edge.

Both are very easy to set up, especially for a front-end designer like me, although the learning curve wasn’t so steep with WordPress and the underlying HTML code is leaner and neater.

For small businesses/clubs/associations on a limited budget who add content regularly or want to update their web site themselves, WordPress is a great choice. Take a look at a couple of web sites that I’ve designed using WordPress – prices start at £499:

• UNISON Essex branch
• Big Wave PR

For very small businesses where every penny counts or don’t need a content managed solution, a static website consisting of 1–5 pages could be ideal. Prices start at £199 for a two-page web site. A couple of examples:

• RG Painter & Decorator
• Earthwork Garden Design

Affordable web design

If you are a small business or club based in Ipswich, Suffolk, Norwich or Norfolk looking for an quality, affordable web site, ulga can help you get a professional online presence. Please call Michael on 01473 723764 or 07544 998 291 for further information or a free no-obligation quote.