Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
(OP)
I prepare a lot of parcel maps, surveys, engineering plans, etc., in my field (Civil Engineering) and when you look at old parcel maps you always see large decorative lettering stating the title of the map or subdivision. Sometimes a decorative North Arrow as well. This lettering was hand drawn of course (as everything was back then), and to me it was quite beautiful. Sometimes it had a lot of decorative calligraphy, scrollwork, hatching, shading, etc. You just don't see that anymore with everything done on computers. Everyone just picks a font that comes with their PC and goes with it. Hand drawing use to be an art form. For someone who loves drafting, and believes we have gained so much by CAD, I think we have also lost a lot of the "art" of drafting.
Lets bring back this dying art. Lets show that engineering is not just lines on paper. It can be beautiful too.
Lets bring back this dying art. Lets show that engineering is not just lines on paper. It can be beautiful too.





RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
www.muleshoe-eng.com
"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
Cool looking hand lettered fonts show off the drafter's skill. Selecting a cooling looking font does not show off the drafter's skill, especially if the font is not installed on my machine when I try to view the attractive drawing.
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
If you use certain fonts and italics - you get somewhat close!??
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
May I suggest 'Just My Type: A Book about Fonts', by Simon Garfield:
http://www
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And if that's not enough, there's always the documentary, 'Helvetica', directed by Gary Hustwit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica_(film)
I downloaded it from iTunes (as well as the 2 other documentaries in Hustwit's trilogy on the impact of 'design' in our modern world).
A comment about old drawings; back where I first worked in engineering, we had several old company drawings, which were done in ink on cloth (linen), framed and hung in our corporate lobby. When you first saw them, it took a moment before you realized that they actually weren't objets d'art . One of them had even been highlighted with watercolors as it looked like perhaps something which was prepared so as to show a prospective customer what it was that he was buying, in this case, a brick-lined tunnel-oven for baking pan-bread.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
UG/NX Museum: http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
I absolutely hate the default font/drawing setup in SolidWorks.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
Previous company I was at found some old drawings lost in the back of a old flat-file and decided to keep 'em - pen and ink on starched linen done in 1918.
Drafting like this is a lost art form. I took basic drafing my first semester in engineering as a required course. By the time I graduated, it was no longer taught.
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
http://mmcengineering.tripod.com
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
That is a nice font. I like that each digit has a distinctive shape (it makes me crazy that it is nearly impossible for me to distinguish a "6" from an "8" in Arial, and Arial Bold is used on my car's dashboard and I never can tell them apart). Microsoft Office uses Calibri and it is no better than Arial. I may start using your hands down winner.
None of these fonts would make the cut in old time lettering.
David
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
Regards,
Mike
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
Most of them say - JUST scale it. After the are PDFed, faxed, emailed, etc - THERE IS NO SCALE.
Architects are the worse!!
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
So what do you do if the model is wrong?
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
The practical side of me hates the eyestrain that is associated with it, however. For the raw utilitarian purpose of communicating error-free technical data, I'll stick with Arial, Verdana, or Garamond. The artsy stuff is nice, but too much room for error.
Just my 2 farthings!
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
I think it's ironic that the people who were best at imagining things in 3D were the ones who worked on paper their whole lives. The drawings were 2D, but the designers had 3D versions of parts and layouts in their minds.
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
berkshire - same thing as when the drawing is wrong.
Aha
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
""" I think it's ironic that the people who were best at imagining things in 3D were the ones who worked on paper their whole lives. The drawings were 2D, but the designers had 3D versions of parts and layouts in their minds. """
I think this was a function of board drafting. Orthographic or isometric was fairly easy compared to rendering a true perspective view of a part, and the person drawing it had to be more of an artist than a designer.
So the tendancy was to keep it in your head rather than put it down on paper,and just do a series of orthographic views from different angles.
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
I cannot speak for TheTick, but I am good at spatial relationships. This made it easier for me to work on a drafting board and on 2D CAD. I can hand draw 3D sketches, complete with perspective. I have done isometric drawings too.
Back in the day, I was very quick to go to the drafting board and the orthogonal projections, mostly because my big design problems involved making things fit in the available space. I need scale. Ortho drawings get the job done if you don't have 3D CAD. 3D sketches are a good way to show off a mechanism, but I have rarely had to do that.
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
Unsurprisingly, they won't.
:)
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
Regards,
Mike
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
A short contract doing line-by line autocad 2D really helped my spatial, lettering and sketching skills. That and Autocad 3D, all wireframe, all of the time. Making sense of a bowl of rectilinear spaghetti.
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
Now those old North arrows, those are always refreshing to look at.
B+W Engineering and Design
Los Angeles Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer
http://bwengr.com | http://bwstructuralengineer.com | http://bwcivilengineer.com
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
I have attached a map I drew for a hiking club. The north arrow is not a masterpiece, but it was fun, and fun is what hiking clubs are all about. It was worth taking a little time.
As with fonts, I am impressed at something somebody draws. I am not impressed at clip-art somebody finds.
One of the things I recall about working on a drafting board was that my lettering deteriorated over the weekend. By late Tuesday, I was back into it. This is stuff you cannot be good at unless you work at it constantly.
--
JHG
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
If you want to do art, go do art. If you want to combine engineering and art, work with an industrial designer or an architect. The rest of us to want you to communicate your ideas legibly and quickly. I can't STAND people that bemoan the loss of hand drafting. Are you kidding me?! Let's bring back slide rules and books of logs - those were pretty awesome, right? Oh wait, I'd rather do multiplication in 0.001 seconds using the iPhone I'm using to type this.
As an engineer, my art is in the beauty and functionality of the designs I create. My clients pay me for that, and to do it quickly, not spend hours tarting up the documents I use to convey my designs.
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
At my very first real job, being able to letter exactly like the chief draftsman was a condition of employment. The resulting drawing sets looked real nice, regardless of who drew which sheet. CAD gives you that hard-won uniformity almost for free.
CAD's easy uniformity also robs the reviewer of a useful signal about how much care went into a design.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
I think that this ping-pong can go on forever
Best regards
Morten
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
I think that the Pentel Pencil,in varying widths even did away for the need for that pencil sharpener.
Although I do still have some clutch pencils and a sandpaper board handy.
I am now retired, and only do this drafting thing when I feel like it.
Besides it is sooo much easier on a computer. You never have to worry about spilling your cup of coffee on the part finished sheet.
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
Yon can spill coffee on your keyboard!
I did not use a 0.5mm pencil for lettering. I used a 2mm lead holder with a semi-sharp lead. Also, I used a 2mm leadholder with a very sharp 5H lead for drawing layouts.
--
JHG
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
I will have to try that, I had never heard of that method, I just happen to have a light green pad on my board out the back.
I used to use a substance that was a first cousin to chewing gum that would pick up dirt from the drawing and or the pad.
Drawoh,
Thats the way I started, with a chisel point, making thick downstrokes and thin upstrokes, and no lettering guide, with a checker who made you re-do it if the lettering was not good enough. I also found that a very sharp 5H pencil would cut vellum if you were not careful.They worked better on Mylar.
Later I moved to another company who insisted that everybody use lettering guides,oh well.
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
...which we used for the really 'critical' drawings.
We also had a "Verityper"...
...that was mostly used to 'type' parts lists onto assembly drawings (these jobs were usually given to a clerk or one of the typist on the office).
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!!
The verityper I never used.
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor