Announcement: GRS Featured Photos-Tira Mitchell

http://www.grstools.com/featuredphotos/
Nice work Tira!

that is just "old worldly beautiful".. just trying to design that would have given me a migraine !

Thanks guys!

AND it's legible! Very cool!

Very nice Tira, Good article.

Joe

Congratulations, Tira.
Well done.

A top notch design. Very cool and terrific job! Seth

Hi Tira, it's very nice.

Yvan.

Hello Tira,

Lovely design and execution. What was your m.o. for this project; computer, pencil and paper, tracing paper or a combination? I'm impressed with how readable you've made this. Some monograms/cyphers of this style are just this side of inscrutable, so kudos to you from an old type-hound.

Best regards,
Doug

Tira,

Beautifully conceived and cut!

best

Rod

"Glendo monogram on Buckle"!

Hi Tira,
Has looked the reference on GRS
"Glendo monogram on Buckle"!

Magnificent Work!
Excellent composition!
Good Balance!

Accept my Congratulations!!!

Accept from me this virtual bouquet!!!



Good luck to You!
New Creative Successes!

BES
Eric S. Brezhitsky

Thanks to all for your comments (and flowers) =)

I originally designed this to do something different at the Denver Knife Show last year when I was there demonstrating for GRS. I started with a pencil and paper and just loosely drew different combinations of regular letters (think of them as stick letters with no width, no flare, no personality) to see how, in the most general sense, the letters would look good together. This particular combination was just one of probably 30 or so quick stick figure sketches to figure out the basic mechanics of which letters should circle others, or be next to each other, or be dominant, etc.

I'm a very visual person and can flip objects around in my mind so my drawings at this point are really scribbles. Most of the shape and layout is figured out when I finally get a clear image in my mind about how it will look.

Once that happened and I picked the final combination I looked in the Bergling books for examples of different letter styles that I liked. Sometimes I like one style of letter from something he has put in there and change it or combine it with other style letters in his or other books. Then the real drawing begins. I used tracing paper and started with the "G" since is is the border to the entire design. Once that was drawn properly - a couple of times with the tracing paper, refining, etc. - then I started on the "O" since it is also a border element. Again back and forth with the drawing.

Once all the letters were done, balanced, woven through each other, etc. I went over the entire design carefully with a very fine black felt tip pen and scanned the design. Usually at that point I would scale it on the computer and transfer it and that would be it. Since this was the Glendo cypher I took the scanned artwork and converted it to a digital vector file and gave it to GRS so they can use it in the future for any type of imaging, printing, lasering, etc. that they choose.

Tira,

This is just beautiful! It looks like more than the normal 2-3 letters, though. What were the letters?

Bunic said:

Tira,

This is just beautiful! It looks like more than the normal 2-3 letters, though. What were the letters?

Click to expand...

Psssttt!

Think 'G L E N D O'

Bunic,

GRS has it listed as a monogram on their site, but it is really a cypher, which is where all the letters in a word or name are intertwined to make an interesting knot or design.

Steve & Tira,

Tnx! I just didn't get it...

Took me a minute too, to tell the truth.

wow that eye is crazy!