Chronicle Books Blog

I recently had the pleasure of working with illustrator and hand-letterer extraordinaire, Mary Kate McDevitt on Let’s Bring Back: The Lost Language Edition. As the subtitle proclaims, the fourth book in our Let’s Bring Back series is “A Collection of Forgotten-Yet-Delightful Words, Phrases, Praises, Insults, Idioms, and Literary Flourishes from Eras Past.” For this alphabetical compendium, it seemed fitting to commission illustrated letters to begin each chapter, and Mary Kate McDevitt definitely delivered! The book was published last week and I asked her to answer a few questions about her process and her hand-lettering work in general. **See below for a chance to win your very own copy!

Can you tell us about your process for the sketches for Let’s Bring Back: The Lost Language Edition? I’m curious as to whether you started with the letter A and just worked your way through, or if you approached the alphabet as a whole?

I started with loose sketches, just going from A-Z to get a good range of styles and weights. From there, I moved on tighter sketches focusing on the letters one by one. I would incorporate different pattern and filagree throughout the entire alphabet. Since it’s hard for me to focus on one style, this project was fun for me to just experiment and see where the letters went.

Do you have a favorite letter to draw, and why? And is there a letter that’s typically more tricky or challenging than the others?

I like drawing “R’s” There are a lot of opportunities with the tail to swoosh out in fun ways. I’m never fond of drawing words that start with “I” I don’t like the script version of it and it’s pretty boring. When you work on one letter individually rather than having to work with words in a composition, you are really able to push the limits in terms or detail and make it as decorative as you want.

In what way did the design aesthetic and the content for Let’s Bring Back inform your lettering style for the project?

Certainly the nostalgic quality informs a lot of my work so reading through the old phrases was fun to try and illustrate them. I’m definitely inspired by historical references when working on lettering projects, so reading through Let’s Bring Back and learning some new “old-timey” language influenced the way I was drawing.

Tell us about your Handwritten Letters project. What did you learn or gain from the process of doing one letter every day?

One of the rules I gave myself for this project was only to use black ink or paint. So venturing out with more brush techniques rather than just a pen has influenced how I work. I experimented with a masque pen to work with negative space in the letters which was fun. I tried not to spend more than an hour on any of the letters so getting an idea, working quickly and working smart was something that was really helpful in the process.

Was there a moment (or project) when you knew you wanted to get into hand-lettering?

My first obsession for hand lettering started when I was hand painting Mini Goals Chalkboards in 2009. Since each was hand-painted, I was always coming up with new ideas for the chalkboards and experimenting with different styles. Once I started working with Chronicle for the Mini Goals Notepad, I became increasingly interested in working with lettering for more print projects.

Thanks, Mary Kate! Feast your eyes on some more of her lovely work on her website.

Readers, what’s your favorite letter of the alphabet to draw or write and why? Let me know in the comments section and I’ll send a copy of Let’s Bring Back: The Lost Language Edition to a lucky letter fan chosen at random.

Emily Dubin
Designer / Fan of the letter G

As a designer I’m always noticing type in the world around me, and can’t help snapping a photo if a sign has a particularly interesting vintage typeface or is a beautiful hand-painted original. On a recent trip to Argentina I came home with more photos of signs than scenery (this is a common designer affliction we’ve written about before).

In Buenos Aires I was excited to learn that there is a historic sign painting tradition with a unique style that evolved there over a century ago. Called fileteado, it’s a style inherent to the aesthetic of the city and decorates signs, buses, buildings, and even cash registers throughout BA.

Some more of my favorite typographic eye-candy from the trip — enjoy!

Emily Dubin
Designer

This is the first of a monthly series where we’ll be highlighting designers and design projects that aim to create social value. Fellow Design Desk contributor Jen Tolo Pierce and I attended the AIGA Gain Conference last month and were inspired by the many presenters and discussions around utilizing our skills as designers for common good. Gain “presenters demonstrated the broadening role design plays in institutional strategy, leadership, process and service, product and message, and how the creative attributes of designers provide special advantages to tackling socially relevant projects and enhancing the human experience.”

Last week with the excitement of voting and stickers and red and blue maps, chances are that the design of your county’s ballot was not a highlight. Long lamented, ballot design is a place where clarity is so obviously crucial, and the difference between good design (ie. clear, legible information and instructions) and bad design, can mean misrepresented votes and voter disenfranchisement. “Design defects in ballots, voter instructions, and voting machines contributed to the loss of several hundred thousand votes in the most recent national elections, according to a recent Brennan Center for Justice study.

Enter AIGA’s Design for Democracy initiative. The project began to focus on election design “in the wake of the 2000 presidential election, seeking to apply information design principles of clarity and simplicity in order to make voting easier and more accurate for all U.S. Citizens.” Hooray! Design for Democracy recently created a series of pocket-size handbooks called “Field Guides To Ensuring Voter Intent,” which were distributed to county election officials this year. The handbooks contain guidelines and suggestions for ballot design which will *hopefully* be incorporated by individual counties in future elections.

The Design for Democracy website also contains some before and after examples showing how simple changes to existing ballot design can greatly enhance clarity and usability.

If this issue is of interest to you, please volunteer to help Design for Democracy’s efforts to get the word out and redesign more ballots before the next national elections: aiga.org/design-for-democracy-get-involved/

If you haven’t yet recycled your sample ballot from last week, there’s a quick and easy way to help! You can upload your sample ballot on ballotup.com to add to their collection of sample ballots from around the county used to pinpoint methods to improve their design.

Here’s to good information design improving our democratic process!

Emily Dubin
Designer

Last week we were treated to treats, drinks, and craft time when Creativebug and Hello!Lucky set up shop here at CB headquarters for a fun evening event. The fabulous Moyle sisters of Hello!Lucky have teamed up with Creativebug — an awesome online resource for art and craft instruction — and filmed a video tutorial for a cute DIY cake topper. At the event, they did a how-to demo for us lucky attendees and we spent the evening making our own glassine and cupcake-liner cake toppers. And, in my case, eating too many cupcakes!

Cake topper inspirations and the fuel for craft-night.

Some boozing and schmoozing pre-demo.

Sabrina and Eunice Moyle show us how it’s done.

We get to work, cutting, tracing, assembling, and embellishing.

And voilà! A finished creation.

As a designer, I spend 90% of my creative hours looking at a screen, so it was super fun to make something with my hands. The event was a frenzy of paper, scissors, cupcake liners, and washi tape. Oh, and glue dots — those suckers stick to everything!

For more DIY fun with the Hello!Lucky ladies, check out their book with us, Handmade Weddings, or their other tutorials on Creativebug. Some great projects on there, including those pom-pom garlands they used to decorate the event space. And that star-studded photobooth backdrop is calling my name!

Emily Dubin
Designer

Photos by Tina Hardison.

As we linger in the last days of summer, I feel nostalgic for when the season actually meant being outside all day—hanging out by the pool, savoring popsicles, hiking through the forest, sleeping under the stars—in a word, camp! It seems I’m not alone in my nostalgia for my summer camp days. I’ve noticed an uptick of all things camp-related recently in fashion, design, and pop culture…

It wasn’t a successful summer unless I came home with an arm full of friendship bracelets made during arts-and-crafts time. Now no longer limited to the under-13 set, they’ve been on everyone’s arms this summer.

Photo credit: via HonestlyWTF.com

Arrows have been showing up in my pinterest feed for awhile, in both home décor and as design elements. I loved camp afternoons spent aiming for (and missing) the bullseye on the archery range.

Photo credit: via uncovet

Photo credit: via Paper-Sparrow

Merit badges, à la girl/boyscout camp, but with cheeky twists, have been popping up everywhere. I especially love the collection by esty seller BeProud, which awards the earner for doing things like “tooting your own horn”, “being a happy camper”, and, my fave, “flipping the bird”.

Always on trend, the 2012 DesignSponge newspaper released earlier this summer, had an entire camp theme, complete with gourmet s’mores recipes and, you guessed it, a friendship bracelet curtain tie tutorial.

In the pop culture realm, the indie movie hit of the summer was Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, set at a “Khaki Scout” summer camp, Camp Ivanhoe. Tons of vintage camp eyecandy.

Photo credit: Focus Features

Photo credit: via Booooooom

And lastly, the ultimate pop culture nod to summer camp, cult-classic Wet Hot American Summer is rumored to be getting a prequel! That means the now 40-something actors will be playing 16-year-olds for even more hilarity and inside-camp-joke ridiculousness. Can’t wait for more summer camp camp with a triumphant return to Camp Firewood!

Photo credit: USA Films

Emily Dubin
Designer / Sanborn Western Camp ’93-’98 alum