Artists i've looked into 4

Josh Owen

Field of Work: Illustrator and Typography and Lettering

Josh states that his company Ursus is about
"Ursus Illustration evolved from a life-long obsession with animals, fine line illustration, tattoos, tree climbing and calligraphy."

Owen, J (2013) About Us, available at: http://ursusillustration.com/sample-page/, viewed on 10/09/2013.

Designed Animal Alphabets.

The B is particularly cute - its got alot of charm, as they all have, in the juxtaposition of creature and human activity.

Available for purchase as A4 or A3 individual sheets here: http://ursusillustration.com/category/prints/

tumbler http://myfonts.tumblr.com/

Ale Paul

Field of work:  Typographer 

Worked as art director for big corporate brands, including Danone and and SC Johnson.

Spoken at big graphic design events, including TypeCon.

He designed many typefaces, inluding: Burgues Script, Adios Script, Poem Script, Hipster script, and Piel Script - won awards for them all, the Piel Script he won Letter2 award (was in top 53 typeface designs of the decade)

Teaches Typography programme, used to teach graphic design.

Burgues Script:

Inspired by craftmanship gone into calligraphy penmanship, in particular Louis Madarasz. 

Moved and awed by the great skills his hands put into the designs, aware of the limitiations of digital typeface design based on calligraphy lettering.

Greatly respects and reveres his hand skills and the different approach and the skills of hand lettering:

"I can only imagine what steady nerves and discipline Madarasz must have had to be able to produce fully flourished and sublimely connected words and sentences on a whim."

and on the digital age and the merits of graphic design and typography:

"One of the wonders of the computer age is the ability to visually conjure up the past, serving both the present and the future."

Paul, A (2006) Burgues Script, available at:http://www.sudtipos.com/fonts/97, viewed on: 16/09/2013.

Paul, A (2006) Sudtipos: Burgues Script, Available at: http://www.sudtipos.com/fonts/97, Viewed on 16/09/2013.

Piel Script:

The exciting paradox about this typeface is that he was inspired to create a typeface for use as a tattoo lettering after seeing a gap in the market and being asked by people to rework Burgeus for tattoo writings.

After looking into the world of Tattoos he discovered that while some exceptional tattoo artists design their own lettering, the majority use stock typefaces.  Also he found that the nature of tattoo lettering was extremely personal:

"After a few such requests I began pondering the whole thing from a professional perspective. It was typography, after all, no matter how unusual the method or medium. A very personal kind of typography, too. The messages being typeset were commemorating friends, family, births, deaths, loves, principles, and things that influenced people in a deep and direct way, so much so that they chose to etch that influence on their bodies and wear it forever."

Paul, A (2006) Piel Script, Available at: http://www.sudtipos.com/fonts/97, Viewed on 16/09/2013.

So he formed a typeface called Piel Script that was notably influenced by burgeus, Adios and in some levels Affair.  

This digital representation was a typeface that resembled beautiful script lettering suited to ornate writing specifically for tattoos.  What i love is that the initial premise was to design a typeface that was inspired by and suitable for tattoos (hand lettering form) which he formed into a typeface digitally (typography) and will now be translated and used by tattoo artists for tattoos (hand lettering) the full circle.