CHAPTER XXIV

HAND-WRITTEN POSTERS, ETC.

It is very useful at times to be able to produce quickly a hand-written poster. It is not always desirable to have printed ones, especially when one or two copies are all that are required, and a hand-written poster can be very effective even if it is produced hurriedly. It is, however, very essential that these should be written as quickly as possible, as the price that the writer would have to charge for a poster that he had spent a whole day in writing would make it quite prohibitive. Therefore speed of production is an important factor that must be considered in connection with the hand-written poster.

It is well to remember that a poster must attract attention. Unless there is something arresting about it, comparatively few people will stop and read it, however well it may be written. Of course all posters do not depend upon the lettering alone to attract, but in any case the lettering should be distinct and prominent. However, the type of poster described here is composed of lettering alone, and so depends entirely on the display of this to catch the eye.

A poster that is written comparatively badly may attract attention much more than one that is written well but without any display, because the badly-written poster may have something striking about it that compels attention. The thing to aim at is to make the poster prominent without annoying people by offending their artistic susceptibilities.

The following is a good method of quickly writing a poster. A sheet of paper is ruled, in the manner shown in Fig. 39, with a soft black-lead pencil. The lines should be ruled lightly and fairly closely together. If the poster is to be written on thin paper, it is not a bad plan to rule these lines boldly in ink on another sheet, so that if this is placed under the paper upon which the poster is to be written these lines will show through quite plainly enough to act as a guide to the writer. It is a good practice to have a number of sheets of various sizes ruled out, so that when a poster is required of a given size one of these can be utilised and the poster written quickly.

The lettering may be roughly sketched in either with a soft black-lead pencil or a piece of charcoal. It may then be written straight away with the pen or brush. When the lettering is quite dry the pencil-marks may be cleaned off with bread or soft rubber, or if charcoal has been used this may be dusted off quite easily; the poster is then complete.

As is plainly obvious, the poster shown in Fig. 40 is produced by means of the pen. The best type of pen for poster-writing is undoubtedly the reed pen, especially if the writing is needed to be fairly large. When this form of pen is used it is advisable to cut it with a fairly long slit; this will ensure the pen working much easier.

When writing with black and red inks, one pen should be kept for black and the other for red. If this is not done, the pen should be carefully washed after it has been used for black ink before using red ink, otherwise the black left in the pen will mix with the red and make the colour dirty. Undoubtedly the best way is, as already mentioned, to use a separate pen for each colour.

As most posters have to be exposed to the weather it is well to use only fixed inks. Fixed inks are generally prepared by being mixed with shellac which is dissolved in a solution of borax. Ordinary water-colours may, however, be made waterproof quite easily by the following method. A saturated solution is made of some bichromate of potash, and a few drops of this solution are added to the colour just before using it. As this chemical makes a bright orange solution it will alter some colours slightly, but for blacks and reds it will not be noticeable. This chemical has the property of making glue, size, or gum insoluble when it is mixed with them, after exposure to the light, and, as water-colours are mixed with gum, it has the same effect in this case. If, therefore, the poster be exposed to the light of the sun for a short period after it has been written, the colour quickly becomes insoluble and therefore waterproof. The best way is to mix as much colour as will be required in a small saucer, adding the bichromate solution. It is quite easy to understand that if any of this colour dries in the saucer it will have to be thrown away, as the light quickly affects it when dry and it will be quite useless owing to its insolubility. Possibly it will be noticed that a yellow stain will show on the back of the poster when the bichromate has penetrated. As, however, in this case one side only of the paper is used, this will not matter in the least.

Larger posters may be written with the brush (see Fig. 41), or partly with the pen and partly with the brush. A brush that is very suitable for quick writing is a Japanese brush like the one illustrated in Fig. 41. This can be used almost in the same manner as the pen, and it is possible to write very quickly with it.

For very careful writing the best brush is the kind known as a sable writer. This is a sable brush with rather long hair. Practice is necessary before the student becomes expert in the use of it, but it will be found that the long sweeping curves of the round letters, as also the straight strokes of the other letters, may be formed much more easily with this type of brush than with the ordinary kind used for painting.

Writers are generally in quills, so perhaps a word may be useful here with regard to the method of fixing a quill brush on a handle. It is not wise to take the quill as it comes from the shop and push it on to a stick. The quill is very liable to split if pushed on too tightly, while, on the other hand, if it is not fixed securely it will drop off, probably whilst doing some important work, and will almost certainly spoil it if it falls off when well charged with colour. The proper way to fix a quill brush is, first of all, to soak the brush well until the quill becomes quite soft. The stick is then carefully tapered with a sharp knife until it exactly fits the quill. Then, while the quill is still soft, it is carefully fitted on to the stick. The result of this method is that when the quill gets dry and hard it will be found to be fitted quite tightly on to the stick, and will certainly not fall off; while, at the same time, there is no danger of splitting the quill.

When writing posters in black and red, the red should be used to give emphasis to words that are important. For example, in the specimen shown, the word “CONCERT” may be in red; also the place, date, and time may well be written in this colour to make them more conspicuous. A simple border may be added composed of some slight decoration formed with direct brush strokes if so desired. This may be either in one or two colours.

Large notices that are required to be lasting may be written on canvas, using oil-colours.

Some examples of window-tickets are shown in Fig. 42. These may be written with the quill pen. The use of black and red is very effective for these, but any colours may be used. It might be a good idea to write a quantity of tickets according to a special colour scheme for a particular window display. This, however, could best be done by working in conjunction with the one who is responsible for dressing the window. Some tickets might be written in white on a dark background. It will be found that, for use in the pen, colours that have been mixed with gum and water without any addition of honey or glycerine will flow much better than ordinary water-colours. When these are used they tend to clog the pen. There is no necessity in this case to fix the colours as they will not be exposed to the weather, so therefore will not need to be waterproof.

If the student has become familiar with the use of the quill pen he should be able to write these fairly quickly and therefore cheaply. The use of simple decoration formed with the same pen that the lettering has been done with may be employed, but this should not be overdone.

In Fig. 43 an example is given of a show-card that has been written with the pen in a simple, straightforward fashion. A simple border has been added which may be quickly and easily formed with the pen or brush. For writing small show-cards the quill pen may be used, but for larger ones the reed pen will be more serviceable.