Black Letter Research

Blackletter typeface, which is also known as gothic was used in the Bible, one of the world's most widely mass-produced books. This teletype faces recognisable by its dramatic fillings extracts and the contrast between the two closely aligned, and Butler typefaces includes swirls as a decorative feature. Blackletter typefaces are mainly based around manuscript lettering.

Blackletter Typefaces

Black letter is mainly a display font, blackletter used to be used as a body font although due to the decorative details it was hard to read to the point of the text becoming illiterate these reasons in the 1500s black letter became less popular for printing, yet remained popular in German-speaking countries.

Gutenburg Bible

Black letter as previously mentioned is now used mainly in headings, logos, posters and signs. It is used in titles such as The Times newspaper and the New York Times. It has also been seen to be used in heavy metal bands, such as motorhead, as its new modern uses contrast against the morals of the band and the music style.

We experimented with black lettering using different materials, and tools which allowed us to create thin and thick lines within one brushstroke. Materials such as palette knives, large flat headed brushes, rulers could be used. This was mixed with black ink that had been watered down, it was water down to give different types of tone within the black letter. The shapes I made were very experimental, loose and expressive; this was because I wanted to put the pieces together afterwards to create different letterforms. The letterforms can be different to what would normally be expected due to the decorative features. To be able to create the lines between the lines between thick and thin, start the brushstrokes in one direction and then change towards the other before resuming back to the beginning position.