Question about Design and Layout

As I try to advance my design and layout skills, a question has occurred to me regarding reverse sides of knives (or anything that has an opposite side for discussion purposes).

From what I have seen, it is common to try and make engraving on bolsters of a knife a mirror image of each other.

Is it sort of a "rule" or standard to try and have each side as exact as possible to the other?

I am referring to scroll and other designs and not scenes or bulino.

Thanks in advance for any help.

A lot of views but no opinions??

I can't answer this one, but I think they don't have to be identical reversed.
I think, if you do both sides with the same pattern, they must be identical and reversed.
But I think another option is to make two different designs, but then they should have the same leaf mass and background space.
Even if there is two different scenes on both sides, they need to have the same "weight"

Hope this helps, and it is just what I'm learning, so I'm not totally shure

arnaud

Peter,
The rule is, there are no rules! But Arnaud's "weight" is a factor.

Phil

Peter, I don't think there are any set rules for making both sides mirror images. It is usually left up to:
A.) The customer--because he wants both sides to match exactly
B.) The engraver--because he/she thinks it looks really cool.

Off the top of my head, I think the only real mistake that could be made would be to engrave totally different styles on each side of the knife: American Scroll on one side and Celtic knots on the other side.
Or a different theme on each side: An African Game scene on one side and Norse Vikings on the other.

Years ago, I looked at a knife that had the bolsters engraved with a White Tail deer on one side and African Lions on the other...The work was good but it didn't seem to "fit" properly.

I think most humans feel more comfortable with symmetry and balance. We like to "turn things over" to see if both sides match. As Brian points out, I think if we can't have that, we like to see a continuation of a theme or style or variations on a theme.

Another agreeing with Brian - we're wired to like symmetry.

As an experiment, draw both symmetric and non-symmetric designs and print them out life size. Stick the printouts down on the object and see how it looks. That's a trick I picked up here in the forums and it really does give a pretty good feel for how a design will look when cut.

In trying to think of how to make a non-symmetric design look good I keep coming back to hidden symmetries. Using Brian's example of an African game scene on one side and Norse Vikings on the other I think you could make it work, but you'd have to plan both scenes very carefully to make them compliment each other - some sort of the same 'relentless predator makes his strike' image in both venues. Closest explanation I can think of is one side shows a falcon striking his prey and the other side shows an F-15 Falcon striking his prey. Hard to explain in a format like this but I think you get the idea.

Thanks for the replies.

KCSteve said:

Another agreeing with Brian - we're wired to like symmetry.

In trying to think of how to make a non-symmetric design look good I keep coming back to hidden symmetries. Using Brian's example of an African game scene on one side and Norse Vikings on the other I think you could make it work, but you'd have to plan both scenes very carefully to make them compliment each other - some sort of the same 'relentless predator makes his strike' image in both venues. Closest explanation I can think of is one side shows a falcon striking his prey and the other side shows an F-15 Falcon striking his prey. Hard to explain in a format like this but I think you get the idea.

Click to expand...

As I mentioned, I was not referring to game scenes or bulino, but variations of scroll or geometric patterns.

I recently spent a LOT of time on a recent knife I engraved, looking at the first side when cutting the second side to get them as precise as possible.

My transfer was just the backbones of the scroll and I just scribed in the leaves as I cut them.

Then it occurred to me that some variation as long as the style of scroll was the same may be acceptable. It would be much faster cutting it too

Peter

Sorry - I got off on the more general tangent.

In your particular case I think that's the way most folks do it - transfer the main lines (definitely the backbones and generally the larger leaves) and then depend on the fact that they tend to do things the same way to make them come out 'close enough'.

In fact, on this different tangent I think that some variation is necessary in some design types to make it look both natural and hand-made.

A border type design - something eseentially geometric - is usually better the more consitent it is.

But scroll, being based on the natural forms of leaves and vines... I think the mind wants a general symmetry but not an exact mirror. A well shaped tree looks roughly the same on both sides but the only ones that are exactly the same are fakes.

I don't think symmetry is necessarily in doing things exactly the same where it comes to scrolls. As long as you consume a similar space the eye will not notice the details until it looks at the details. That doesn't mean that you can use drastically different scroll styles like Brian said. That would be rather obvious. If the basic structure is the same, the difference in leaves or alterations in leaf styles won't make much different as long as you maintain balance as always.

I think geometric patterns and borders should remain consistant in a like manner on either side. You could change up borders on the same side depending on how you intend to divide the scrolls up with border seperations.

The point is you can maintain symmetry that will please they eye of balance, while doing using diverse scroll applications.

Balance and order is more in the spacing and rythum of leaves, background, consistent intensity over the scroll part, and similar space consumption. That is the beat of your work, which has to be maintained, or order begins to fall apart. Helter skelter is not good in any sense of balance. On the other hand, the roller coaster highs and lows would be accomplished by the subject creating the highs, scroll work and framing would be the lows. This would give one a sense of excitement, but making the subject more important.

Ron S