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Where did decorative lettering go? Lets bring it back!!!! 2

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SethWCE

SethWCE

Civil/Environmental
Feb 27, 2012
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I prepare a lot of parcel maps, surveys, engineering plans, etc., in my field (Civil Engineering) and when you look at old parcel maps you always see large decorative lettering stating the title of the map or subdivision. Sometimes a decorative North Arrow as well. This lettering was hand drawn of course (as everything was back then), and to me it was quite beautiful. Sometimes it had a lot of decorative calligraphy, scrollwork, hatching, shading, etc. You just don't see that anymore with everything done on computers. Everyone just picks a font that comes with their PC and goes with it. Hand drawing use to be an art form. For someone who loves drafting, and believes we have gained so much by CAD, I think we have also lost a lot of the "art" of drafting.

Lets bring back this dying art. Lets show that engineering is not just lines on paper. It can be beautiful too.
 
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It is so beautiful that I regularly see maps from those days mounted in frames and selling in art galleries for serious money. Attempts to duplicate that stuff on the computer generally fail miserably. I know that if I had the requirement to turn out that quality of lettering (either by hand or computer) I'd be starving under a bridge somewhere.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.
 
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SethWCE,

Cool looking hand lettered fonts show off the drafter's skill. Selecting a cooling looking font does not show off the drafter's skill, especially if the font is not installed on my machine when I try to view the attractive drawing.

Critter.gif
JHG
 
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Now that those distractions are gone, we are compelled to put beauty into our actual art, instead of just decorating the frame.
 
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Sounds like it's time to do a little reading...

May I suggest 'Just My Type: A Book about Fonts', by Simon Garfield:



And if that's not enough, there's always the documentary, 'Helvetica', directed by Gary Hustwit:


I downloaded it from iTunes (as well as the 2 other documentaries in Hustwit's trilogy on the impact of 'design' in our modern world).

A comment about old drawings; back where I first worked in engineering, we had several old company drawings, which were done in ink on cloth (linen), framed and hung in our corporate lobby. When you first saw them, it took a moment before you realized that they actually weren't objets d'art . One of them had even been highlighted with watercolors as it looked like perhaps something which was prepared so as to show a prospective customer what it was that he was buying, in this case, a brick-lined tunnel-oven for baking pan-bread.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
 
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The closest I've been able to get, using a font that may actually be present or installable on someone else's machine, is "City Blueprint" font in AutoCAD.

I absolutely hate the default font/drawing setup in SolidWorks.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
 
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I do like the combination of art and engineering into projects I do. It makes it feel more personal and unique which is why Times New Roman rules, haha just kidding
 
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I did a font poll at one workplace where there were a lot of gray beards and fuzzy eyes. Century Gothic won hands down as most readable.
 
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The company I work for just got rid of 2000 lbs of old drawings from the late 40's through early 60's. I grabbed one random C-size from the top of the pile dated 54' that had some nice sectional views of a mechanical part that I will frame. No doubt someone put some effort into it.

Previous company I was at found some old drawings lost in the back of a old flat-file and decided to keep 'em - pen and ink on starched linen done in 1918.

Drafting like this is a lost art form. I took basic drafing my first semester in engineering as a required course. By the time I graduated, it was no longer taught.
 
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Tick,
That is a nice font. I like that each digit has a distinctive shape (it makes me crazy that it is nearly impossible for me to distinguish a "6" from an "8" in Arial, and Arial Bold is used on my car's dashboard and I never can tell them apart). Microsoft Office uses Calibri and it is no better than Arial. I may start using your hands down winner.

None of these fonts would make the cut in old time lettering.

David
 
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The skills to produce decorative lettering went the same place the skills to produce a decently made drawing went. Lets bring that back too:)

Regards,

Mike
 
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Lets explore another area. PLEASE put dimensions on drawing!!!

Most of them say - JUST scale it. After the are PDFed, faxed, emailed, etc - THERE IS NO SCALE.

Architects are the worse!!
 
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KENAT (Mechanical)

So what do you do if the model is wrong?
B.E.

The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
 
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Personally, I like Garamond. For the nostalgic side of things, I too, love the old drawings and beautifully scripted technical documents.

The practical side of me hates the eyestrain that is associated with it, however. For the raw utilitarian purpose of communicating error-free technical data, I'll stick with Arial, Verdana, or Garamond. The artsy stuff is nice, but too much room for error.

Just my 2 farthings!

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
 
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One thing that I think was good about manual drafting is that it fostered a culture of attention to detail. Committing designs to paper required thoughtfulness at every step in the game. This kind of habitual mindfulness is hard to come by amongst youngsters.

I think it's ironic that the people who were best at imagining things in 3D were the ones who worked on paper their whole lives. The drawings were 2D, but the designers had 3D versions of parts and layouts in their minds.
 
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KENAT (Mechanical) 7 May 12 12:53
berkshire - same thing as when the drawing is wrong.

Aha [censored]
B.E.

The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
 
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