Personal, a letrazine
The art of lettering as defined by Nicolete Gray embraces each of the various disciplines engaging with letterforms, be they written, carved, painted, printed or otherwise crafted into being. And it is in this same inclusive sense that I think of Laura. She is lettering, because she is type, typography and all things associated with the art of making letterforms.
In this personal fanzine she showcases the many different styles of typefaces, that she has created to date, each typeface carefully typeset, just as one would expect of someone with her dedication and passion. And there are also her wonderful drawn letterforms.
Not just her own take on what lettering could be, but the work of others in the form of the public lettering she so enthusiastically records and shares. So while this is a personal fanzine, it is a platform from which Laura is happy to feature the work of others. Because if Laura is lettering, she is also what she sees and feels, what she has absorbed and learned through time.
Her letter shapes are infused with the inspiration that is seeing and looking. One can see the work of Imre Reiner or Sister Corita Kent, distilled through Laura’s eye and hand, and made her own. It is a generous form of looking that is not scared of learning nor ashamed of showing her inspiration, a form of noticing that welcomes us into her personal journey.
The Extravaganza collection, an ongoing project, is not an alphabet that will ever be used to create words, but these individual letters communicate meaning enough through their forms alone, elaborated through their rich textures and colours. And while intellectual meaning will differ for every reader, the real power of these letters is their capacity to provoke feeling and to take each one of us on an emotional journey.
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Making things at TypeTogether, researching the past of architectural lettering PhD candidate at Central St Martins — & publisher at Tipo e.
Text written for the introduction of Personal, a ‘letrazine’ as part of the project “Expanding the Craft” that was shown at the Bouwput Gallery of Amsterdam in May 2018.
