Artist Revives Gothic Blackletter Script by Hand

By Jason Boog 

One artist will recreate a lost style of gorgeous handwriting, using web video to share his ancient practice.

Type designer, illustrator and artist Seb Lester will revive the BlackLetter script that has been out of use for more than three hundred years. He will document his efforts on video, a gorgeous tribute to handwritten letters (embedded above). Check it out:

BlackLetter was used throughout Europe from about 1150 until the end of the 17th century. One of my current preoccupations is developing a set of modern BlackLetter capitals that are highly legible, in BlackLetter terms, and yet retain the richness and beauty inherent in this ancient category of letterform.

The name of this classical font has become synonymous with old books. According to Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, it has this secondary meaning: “Given to the study of books in black letter; that is, of old books.”