CHAPTER X.
LETTERING: WAGON LETTERING AS DISTINGUISHED FROM SIGN WRITING--POINTS ON LEARNING THE ART--LAYING OUT, SPACING, OUTLINING--SHADING--PUNCTUATION--ALPHABETS: ROMAN--MODIFIED BLOCK--ORNAMENTAL--GRECIAN. DESIGNS FOR BUSINESS WAGON PANELS, ETC.
Of late years the art of sign writing, or, in the speech of the shop, lettering, has come to be so generally regarded as particularly distinct and apart from the other branches of painting, having a literature rich and diversified in its resources, that, at first thought, it would seem perfectly feasible and proper to omit from these chapters any attempt to deal with the subject. Nevertheless, upon further consideration the writer has preferred to accept the art, for the present at least, as an indivisible part of the carriage and wagon painter's shop practice; and while a thorough exposition of modern sign writing would necessarily trespass immoderately upon the space allotted to the numerous and vitally essential phases of carriage and wagon painting, and cannot, therefore, be entered into, to ignore the branch altogether might fairly be branded as too palpable an oversight to merit excuse. Happily, however, the art of sign writing has been so extensively treated upon in numerous books devoted specially to the subject, and in hundreds of exhaustive magazine articles, that it becomes necessary in this chapter to touch only upon the salient features of the work as they directly concern and apply to the interests of the carriage and wagon painter.
Not later than fifteen years ago the standard styles of the wagon letterer consisted of about five alphabets. The modern sign writer and letterer, encouraged and directed by the forces of recent business development, has to a large extent demolished this standard, substituting therefor what is generally accepted as up-to-date sign writing--a style that readily admits of the employment of whatever form or style of letter will best and most vividly advertise the business it is intended to herald. Complaints have been sounded in widely read publications to the effect that "it was at one time the wagon letterer's good fortune to possess an occupation and a name above that of the sign writer." "His work," we are told, "could be quickly distinguished from the ordinary letterer or sign painter by its boldness and the care given to details. These days have gone by, and we find the well-known and approved style of the wagon letterer prostituted to the idiosyncrasies of house and sign painters."
Such complaints, we are free to say, are in the main exaggerated. The wagon letterer has not been, nor is he in any present danger of being, Othello-like, without an occupation. Moreover, despite the adoption by the wagon letterers of those styles which most completely respond to the dictates of modern business, there still remain certain marked characteristics of the vehicle letterer's work which distinguish it from the efforts of the most finished sign writer. Not that the work of the wagon letterer differs conspicuously from that of the expert general sign writer--the field of up-to-date sign work having merged the two branches into close relationship--but the difference is manifest, as before said, in characteristics most plainly unmistakable. Naturally, this variation should occur.
A sign that would appear legible and clean cut upon a building might, if transferred to the panel of a more or less rapidly moving vehicle, prove unreadable and hopelessly indistinct. A sign attached to a building or other stationary object admits of study from the various points of the compass, from near by or afar off. It is not a fleeting show as in case of the vehicle sign, subject to laws of propulsion which vary to meet existing business exigencies.
Perspective effects, heights, widths, thickness of lines, etc., because of the usually generous sweep of space at command, as secured by the sign writer, do not come within the scope of the wagon letterer's activity, save in rare instances. Ordinarily wagon spaces to be lettered are of dwarfed dimensions and quite commonly cast in irregular outlines. In wagon lettering, whenever possible, the extended letter frequently has the preference. An able and widely observant critic says "it might almost be said that the customary speed of a vehicle can be measured by the degree of elongation which the letterer gives to his work, the lightning express car representing the ultimatum in one direction, while the mammoth furniture van, with its high art panels, is characteristic of the other." The chief distinguishing feature of wagon lettering, as contrasted with the average results of sign writing, is found in the wider variety of elegant color effects to be remarked of the first named. The wagon letterer essays glazing with many of the beautiful transparent pigments, and in this wise brings forth charming combinations in color seldom attempted by the sign writer.
The wagon letterer's work is done, as a rule, with quick drying colors or size, and almost invariably is varnished over. Surface smoothness is therefore with him a matter of the first importance. The art of the wagon letterer is composed of many difficulties, each of which must be surmounted ere the learner can hope to stand among the select few and quaff the foam from the beaker of success.
However, let me say that a thorough mastery of the art is worth all the toil, patient study, diligent practice, and applied energy the aspirant may choose to expend.
To achieve proficiency in this branch of painting, it is advisable to practice outlining letters with a chalk crayon, or, preferably, pipe clay on a goodly sized blackboard. All lines, straight or curved, should be drawn in free hand, and the practice ought, properly, to be regularly continued until the workman acquires a reliable degree of precision. Ease, freedom, and a masterly command of the hand, coupled with a fairly unerring accuracy of the eye, are justly indispensable accomplishments in sign writing or wagon lettering. Absence of mechanical aids will render free hand and eye work more assured. Many admittedly first-class sign writers practice marking out with rule, compass, and line every letter which they produce, insisting upon mechanical accuracy in "laying out" as the only correct means of developing style. Such workmen, unfortunately, were probably indifferent, in apprenticeship days, to the advantages to be derived from free hand drawing, and being strangers to them they find themselves greatly handicapped thereby.
The free-hand and rule-rivalling-eye mechanic goes to his space to be lettered and after a swift, accurate study of the limitations and contour of that space, as a basis for the letter construction, including style, height, thickness, etc., he snaps the necessary top and bottom lines and proceeds to rapidly, but lightly, sketch out his letters. Fairly marvelous examples of this manner of mechanics are to be encountered in sign and wagon establishments. Such men are rarely ever in search of a job. The job is mostly in sharp search of them.
Such skill and facility in execution of lay outs is not gained in a day. An eminent vehicle letterer once told the writer that he "was glad to have acquired the 'knack' of accurate free hand and eye work after _years_ of practice." At present there are boundless fields of originality awaiting the sign writer and vehicle letterer. Imitation of the styles of expert letterers may with the beginner lead up to nobler examples of the art--for has not the sage whispered that genius knows only the right of conquest?--but to the apprentice, fired with the sacred spark of ambition, copying will not long suffice.
The acknowledged best examples of sign writing and wagon lettering should serve as the beginner's model, rather than the work of any single practitioner of the art. The fact that the work of every letterer has a certain, positive individuality of style furnishes the best possible reason why the learner should strive to avoid copying continuously the various alphabets of any individual expert to the exclusion of all others.
LAYING OUT, SPACING, OUTLINING, AND BALANCING
of a job of wagon lettering are factors of chief concern. The artistic and really beautiful example of lettering is brought forth only when praiseworthy skill is exercised in executing the operations named. Individuality of workmanship is based upon the style of laying out. A workman practiced in handling a lettering or striping pencil can very soon master the difficulties of painting a letter after it is outlined. The job accurately and artistically laid out, even if lettered in a manner not strictly up to the standard, will far more effectively fulfill its mission as a work of art than will the one properly penciled but improperly designed. The key, then, to fine wagon lettering may be embraced in the work of laying out. To present rules by which the workman may at all times and closely abide in preparing a contemplated design for letter painting would be impracticable because the laying out, with its attendant features, must conform to the size, form, and general condition of the surface. In laying out, the best exponents of the art are agreed that it is advisable to employ as few lines as possible. The fewer lines, the more grace, freedom, and easy poise of the letters. At the beginning of his career the letterer will probably need the aid of four lines, two for the top limbs and two for the bottom limbs of the letters. As he gains in skill and experience the two inside lines may be dispensed with. Then with the ever present dividers in hand the space so lined out may be "touched off" until the necessary divisions to accommodate the letters desired in the line are spaced. Generally speaking, all letters, except W, M, J, and I, have equal spaces, one square, for example. M and W require a bit more space, I and J a bit less. There is to be remarked a considerable variation in the space between letters, some of the letters being full in form and some open. In the use of L, F, J, A, V, W, T, Y, only half the space given to the other letters is allowable, and in the placing of V and L less than half is permissible, one letter being advanced well into the space allowed the other. The letter I is in some respects a difficult letter to space correctly. When it chances to be cast between two letters occupying full squares each it will require more than the usual space, otherwise, being a needle-like letter, it will be elbowed out of easy location.
The vehicle letterer, daily practicing his art, will frequently find himself confronted with words or combinations of words to which rules of spacing, however carefully they may be laid down, do not apply. In such cases hard and fast rules of spacing cannot be successfully observed. Spacing to suit individual requirements must then obtain. Here a letter may be moved from its nearest neighbor a little more than its ordinarily allotted space would permit; there a letter is placed closer to its neighbor than the rules usually allow. The position of several letters may be disturbed in order that the word or words may display a correctly spaced appearance. Vehicle letterers invariably devote one-half of a letter space to separate capital letters of names. This spacing furnishes the capitals with plenty of prominence and makes plain and distinct the whole name. Usually the half of a letter space is placed between words. This half, however, may vary somewhat as the size and general conformation of the surface may indicate.
In outlining letters many of our best vehicle letterers advise using no inside lines, the extreme outer lines only being employed. This method of outlining precludes the possibility of becoming confused on account of a multiplicity of lines, the spacing may be more accurately judged, and enlarged proficiency in free hand work is attained. Especially in the first draft of a letter design is the use of the outside lines only to be commended. The balance of a letter or a series of letters is that effect which gives legibility and artistic proportions to the design. A top-heavy appearance is a fatal defect in a letter. To properly balance a letter is to so proportion it that it will immediately give the effect of being able, if cut out of thick board, to stand upon its base solid, secure, and in no danger of toppling over. For a clearer illustration of the significance of balancing letters, invert some of the accompanying examples of X, S, Z, etc. The base of the letter S, if made the same size as the apex, would throw the letter sadly out of balance. In spacing and outlining a letter design, the matter of shading should be considered, and a needed allowance made therefor if shading is to be done.
SHADING.
Many sign writers contend that shading a letter is nothing more or less than making an artificial representation of a raised letter, and consequently requires a fine light shade upon the top and left side of the letter, and a dark one upon the bottom and right side. Formerly, vehicle letterers did not admit the propriety of this way of shading, insisting that the shades should be on the right side and bottom. Only in case of sunk-bottom vehicles were the shades cast on the top and right side. It was considered deplorably out of form to throw a shade to the left of the letter.
But the swift tide of up-to-date letter work has left its impress upon the style of shading in vogue, and it is now remarked as admissible to cast the shades at any desired angle and upon any desired side of the letters. Nevertheless, it is the leading custom among vehicle letterers to cast the shading on the right side and at the bottom of the letters. Expert exponents of the art aver that indiscriminate shading of letters robs their work of its individuality.
Properly, the shade of a letter as it is generally understood may be defined as that letter's thickness or depth. However, that which is strictly and correctly the shade of a letter is the "cast shadow" and it belongs to the side opposite the thickness of the letter. The "cast shadow" usually consists of a thin wash or glazing of the ground color, and excepting its use upon light colored grounds, it is not extensively employed. The wagon letterer resorts generously to letter shading, using single, double, and treble shades, as the requirements of his business suggest. In this work, skill as a colorist of the first order is demanded, a large amount of shading being executed by the manipulation of glazing colors. In double or treble shading it should be remembered that the darkest shade invariably belongs nearest the letter. Moreover, the letter, and not the shade, should display the most prominent color. In respect to letters laid in gold, silver, or aluminum, it is advisable to make the shade touch the leaf. Letters done in pigment are frequently given a "free shade" which consists in permitting a small space of the surface color to separate the letter and the shade. The "close shade" describes the shade that is allowed to join the letter. A shade looks ungainly and ill proportioned if made wider than the bars of the letter, excepting, of course, the treatment of the bottom shades, which are often made a little heavier than the perpendicular ones. This heavier bottom shading is based upon the assumption that the sun casts a heavier shade to the bottom in proportion to the angle of light. While the shading is generally cast against the letter at an angle of forty-five degrees, it is necessarily inclined more nearly to a perpendicular when the bottom of the letter is more heavily shaded than the sides. Some alphabets do not admit of shading, and others require very little, as compared to still others. A portion of some letters in certain styles of alphabets would present a choked up and inharmonious appearance if tricked out in a shade of uniform weight. Thus, B, K, G, N, S have body angles which do not admit of so heavy a shade as perpendicular or bottom letters. In shading it should be a paramount rule to closely study the tone of the ground, to the end that the most natural shadow be chosen, one that is in strict harmony with the colors of both the lettering and the groundwork. Harmonious and effective color schemes have greatly to do with fine results in the art of wagon lettering.
Gold lettering on black and white grounds may be effectively shaded with almost any color but that of the yellow order. A well-known authority advises the use of the richest and most permanent tones of red, green, blue, and umber shades in shading gold letters placed on colored grounds. Reds, especially the intense and most brilliant reds, are warm, advancing colors for shading gold letters. Imagine, if you please, a more strikingly handsome combination than a gold letter shaded with red cast against a ground of some one of the fashionable greens. Or reverse the style, and put the gold letter upon a ground of carmine glazed over flamingo red, shading with green. Blue, as a shade, produces a cool, distant effect.
Black letters may be usually shaded with any of the primary or secondary colors. In shading it should be borne in mind that complementary colors cannot always be tastefully combined. As, for instance, yellow and orange would not look fetching to any extent when shaded with blue, although regarded as complementary. The learner should apply himself studiously to the study of happy and harmonious color effects in the matter of shading.
PUNCTUATION.
A staid old axiom has it that "art and education are twin sisters," but the examples of punctuation as seen in wagon lettering often met with suggest the inference that the vehicle letterer is not slow, at times, to offer a startling contradiction to the axiom. The sense of construction and meaning can be quickly and effectually destroyed in a piece of lettering by a bit of bad punctuation. The simple misplacing of a comma, period, or apostrophe,--about the only punctuation marks deemed necessary at present to bring out the full meaning and make symmetrical a job of vehicle lettering--often results in disfiguring an otherwise really meritorious piece of work. The late Mr. Geo. W. W. Houghton has defined the object of punctuation, "to so divide written or printed sentences that the meaning may be made more visibly clear."
In vehicle lettering as now practiced the more striking and illuminative words and phrases are set forth in separate lines, each line, as a rule, carrying a different size and a different style of letter. This system of vividly illuminating and emphasizing vehicle lettering has reduced the need of punctuation to the minimum; but it renders the necessity of a wise and judicious use of punctuation marks none the less imperative. In no way that we are aware of can the information which a line of lettering is intended to convey be so clearly perverted as through the medium of a flagrant error in punctuation. A sweep of lettering done according to the most approved standard of letter form and construction, but improperly punctuated, is at best only a distorted and deformed example of workmanship. The advertising pages of the big magazines offer fine advantages for the accumulation of reliable "pointers" upon the accepted practice of modern newspaper and magazine punctuation. To such sources the reader is invited to go if he would profit by the examples set forth by acknowledged masters of the art of punctuation.
ALPHABETS.
The Roman alphabet is easily the most beautiful and engaging of all the alphabets used by the wagon letterer. It is an alphabet of impressively graceful lines, curves flowing easy rather than exact, with nothing about it to suggest a lack of freedom or easy repose. The Roman letter, as conceived by the modern school of American sign writers and letterers, is at once the most picturesque and the most difficult to execute of any style known. It is a letter of severe requirements, enforcing in its proper execution a very facile and skilled manipulation of all the aids at the command of the workman. Inferior quality of work cannot be concealed in the Roman letter. Every curve of its noble form must be brought out and fully rounded if the letter is to be what its name implies. Accompanying this chapter is a Roman alphabet, and while there are a number of styles dignified under the title of Roman they are all formed on the same general principle. The Roman alphabet is deservedly held in high esteem by vehicle letterers and sign writers the country over. It is most commonly adapted to the needs of wagon lettering, especially. It is easily read and can be greatly extended, if necessary, without injury to its bold and legible characteristics. The distinctive features of the individual letters contained in the Roman alphabet are briefly summarized as follows:
A has its cross bar drawn at two-fifths of its height. Properly it should be wider than the H or N. The center bar of B belongs above the center of the letter. C is not drawn in a perfect circle. Abrupt curves should be avoided and the exact lines of the dividers discarded. D requires care in execution, its large sweeping curve being a difficult one to control. E goes a bit wider than its height, with bar above center. F is frequently drawn a trifle narrower than E. Remarks made concerning C apply to G. Keep cross bar of H above the center. Its width should be about equal to its height. I is very easy to make and needs no description. J is a little narrower than the other letters. K is entitled to about the same space as H. The cut shows where the angles of the letter meet. L and M occupy considerably more space than other letters. N requires the same space as H. O is a little wider than C. The necessity for this increased width will become immediately plain to one who will first make C and then undertake to confine O in the same circle. The proportion of P is shown in the alphabet. Q, along with O, needs easy, sweeping curves to best display its form. Make the appendage clean cut and bold. It has been said that a wagon letterer's standard as an artist is determined by the quality of his Roman R's. Be that as it may, R is rightfully regarded as a difficult letter to execute. The cross bar usually goes in at the center of the letter. The tail of the letter constitutes the difficult point to control. S is a handsome letter, withal a difficult one to execute properly. To ascertain the correctness of one's S, invert the letter as drawn. Inverted the letter will be top-heavy but it should not be built on awkward lines. T has the same height as width. It should not be narrowed beyond the proportion here indicated, as one often observes it in sign work. N and V may be passed without comment. W, practically composed of two V's, is distinguished as the widest letter of the alphabet. X occupies about the usual space and its upper part should be smaller than the nether. Y is best known as a wide letter and like the T, has a shape that tends to break the regularity of spacing and leads the workman oftentimes to ruin the appearance of the letter through the process of contraction. Z is ordinarily classed as one of the easy letters of the alphabet to make.
The modified block alphabet herewith shown is executed by many Eastern wagon letterers, and it may be said to be drawn upon pleasing and easy lines. In display lines the modified block presents a glowingly fine appearance, forcible, prominent, and plain enough for him who runs to read.
The ornamental alphabets set forth in alphabets No. 1 and No. 2 require no extended comment. They may be varied somewhat to meet certain needs and necessities. The letters composing No. 2 have limbs projecting above and below the regulation lines, and therein lies the chief beauty.
By the kind permission of Mr. Chas. B. Sherron, editor of _Varnish_, the writer is pleased to illustrate a Grecian alphabet of decidedly unique attractions. Wagon letterers have come to regard this alphabet with much favor, and, if properly executed, it gives very striking effects. The embellishments admit of innumerable changes and modifications. In point of fact, the variations that are possible with this design are only limited by the talent of the workman. The letters may be shaded quite as handily as other styles. Done in gold against any dark ground they furnish beautiful and rich effects.
Accompanying these alphabets are a few designs for business vehicle panels in which examples of present day lettering are reflected from variously ornamented grounds. From a study of them the apprentice may perhaps find a suggestion that will lead him to originate more pretentious examples. There are many unexplored fields of beauty in the domain of ornamental wagon lettering, bear in mind.