Happy 10th Birthday Leon!

Our grandson Leon is ten years old today. Here's a picture of him with his dad just before they went on holiday to Finland earlier this year. Also here is a special track that his dad wrote for his big day. I have to admit it brought a tear to my eye listening to it. Happy 10th birthday Leon... hope you have a great day!

In the beginning was the Word... or in this case perhaps the Letter!

I recently bought what many are coming to consider the closest thing there is to the 'bible' of typography. There are many books around which are written for designers and typographers, and are mainly to do with typographic design and how to arrange type in terms of graphic composition, but this book - The Elements of Typographic Style, by Robert Bringhurst - deals with much more than that. Go here for a good review of the book by Roy Johnson.

Half Term in that London

A half term trip to visit the southern contingent of children and grandchildren. A mixture of busy-ness and chilling, travelling in the capital, plodging around in the rain, a gorgeous Thai meal with Aaron and Nicola, playing with the grandkids and a quick visit to the National Portrait Gallery!... listening to Angel play her violin, watching 'UP' with the Toggies.... oh.... and Emma died her hair red... beautiful!

Poppy plays the cello!

Here is our eleven year old granddaughter Poppy, who was playing the cello last night and performing with 300 other children from Islington schools 'Music First' project. A cute picture... but nothing really remarkable about this I suppose you might say, except that Poppy has been profoundly deaf from birth, and has a *cochlear implant. Wow Poppy you are amazing!

(*A cochlear implant bypasses the damaged part of the ear and sends sound directly to the hearing nerve providing a clearer understanding of sound and speech).

Why we need good typographers...

Chile mint boss pays the price of coin spelling howler
The general manager of the Chilean mint has been dismissed after thousands of coins were issued with the name of the country spelt wrongly...
More here

White on White at Higham Hall

Here's a few of the pieces I produced on the calligraphy weekend at Higham Hall. The subject of the workshop was 'White on White', using Dr Marten's bleedproof white on chinese and other papers. Most of the time was spent experimenting and having fun with different mediums and tools. There were only five people on the course so plenty of individual tuition for us all. BTW if you've never been to HH it's well worth a visit, with plenty of courses to suite most tastes... and the food is truly wonderful!

Emmylou Harris and Albert Lee - Making Believe

One of my favourite singers and a brilliant version of this great song by Jimmy Work.

Off to Higham Hall

I'm off this weekend to Higham Hall, near Cockermouth in Cumbria. I'm attending a calligraphy course and Manny Ling is the teacher. I've been looking forward to it for ages and I'm hoping to put a few of my current worries aside to focus on learning new skills and producing some decent work. I'll let you know how I get on.