ABOUT
TYPOGRAPHIC PRINTS & POSTERS
The Story
Gullscliff Type are a collection of posters and prints based on a set of hand created type styles from 1890.
The original book was found at an antiques market in the North West of France and illustrates a set of hand created type styles created for professional signwriters of the era.
The Book
LIBRARY OF THE BUILDING PAINTER
NEW PRACTICAL COLLECTION
MODERN LETTERS
for the use of painters
By Louis Ramade
Peintre de Lettres, Decorateur Ex-Professeur a l’Ecole de Peinturee de Melun
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Translated Preface
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
After reading all the books of LETTERS and TEACHINGS published to date, I have experienced a great deal of that among the various models of LETTERS and SIGNS published, none had been done by a Specialist, that is to say a Painter of Letters.
Indeed, in all the publications to which I refer, the form Classical and Style of each Genre have been completely and methodically neglected to make way for the fantasy of the Artist; likewise, the Finition, that is, the thicknesses and shadows, resemble nothing, as colors, in what is done in the Sign.
What does it take for a painter to execute a beautiful sign, if not the harmony of colors and the simplicity of execution? That’s what I have striven to achieve in this book, remaining strictly in the field of practice: this is an essential merit that professional painters will not fail to recognize and appreciate.
Finally, in the case where MM. Painting contractors would have to execute The work of the Signers is very complicated, I will willingly make them available to facilitate their task, either by myself or by my advice, and in a word, to make them come to know and practice the profession of Painter of Letters as we practice it ourselves in PARIS.
L. Ramade,
Painter of Letters,
Ex-Professor Decorator at the Melun Painting School
*Translated from the original text
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The Type Styles
French Alphabet
The French use of the letter ‘W’
The letter ‘W’ is quite rare in the French language. While the French use the Latin (or Roman) alphabet with twenty-six letters today, this was not always so.
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The letter ‘W’ was added in the 19th century, most likely because of its use in the languages of other countries with whom the French interacted with.
https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/French/Alphabet
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French is based on the Latin alphabet (also called the Roman alphabet), and there are twenty-six (26) letters. Originally there were twenty-five (25) letters, with ‘W’ being added by the mid-nineteenth century. Unlike the English, who call it a “double-u,” the French use “double-v” and pronounce it (doo-bluh-vay) after the ‘V’ which is pronounced (vay). Note that the letter w is not commonly used except in regional or loan words. The French alphabet used today is less than 200 years old.
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