Libelle
Jovica Veljović: About the typeface
I have an affinity for old engravings, and I adore their letters. As a student, I would spend an hour before class each day practicing the English copperplate style on my own. While it could be said that engraving styles like this displaced writing as personal expression, the stylized forms of engraved letters do symbolize a peak of craftsmanship and skill.
Writing in and of itself still fascinates me, as does the practice of varying the pressure of strokes with flexible, pointed pens. The impulse to create a typeface in the English copperplate style only came to me after I acquired a copy of the two-volume Johannes Pine edition of Horace’s “Opera” (Quinti Horatii Flacci “Opera”). Its pages were printed from plates engraved in copper in London, from 1733 to 1737; this was the first book ever to have all of its text engraved in that manner.
Back in the 1980s, I received a commission from Aaron Burns to design the letterhead and business cards for the Zapf & Burns Company in New York. Aaron Burns was the president of ITC at that time. My lettering for this job was to follow the style of
Herb Lubalin, who had been a giant in the field of graphic design. This gave me the opportunity to work with English copperplate style lettering.
