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Hour Glass Creation

Carl Shank • Oct 18, 2023

Hour Glass Creation. Have you ever found something that challenged your creativity and skill? In typography such things exist all the time. In leafing through old ad booklets for the now defunct Adobe Minion Multiple Master Font (See Blogs on "More About Fonts" and "The Journey of Digital Type"), I found a challenging hour glass design with type expertly set within the hour glass to look like time slowly draining from top to bottom. That inspired me to see if I could do something similar with Adobe InDesign, which I love to use for all sorts of projects.


The challenge was to create an interior using only type that seems to be trickling down, as time is seen slowly moving down the hour glass. Since I am a Christian typographer, author and pastor, this was also an opportunity to pull from the Bible's perspective of time slowly drawing to a conclusion from the book of Revelation in the Bible. I chose Revelation 20 as the text to use inside the hour glass. I am certain that more professional illustrators and type setters can do a better job. But this is what I created using the tools and training in InDesign over the years.


Enjoy — and dive into your next type challenge!

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Typography Pictorial History

By Carl Shank • 15 May, 2024
Typography Pictorial History. Typography has a rich and fascinating history that spans centuries, evolving alongside the development of writing systems, printing technologies, and artistic movements. Throughout this rich history, typography has evolved from a functional necessity to a sophisticated art form, reflecting cultural, technological, and artistic movements. Today, typography continues to play a crucial role in visual communication, shaping the way we perceive and interact with information. Here's an overview of the history of typography.

Old Bible Typography Versals

By Carl Shank • 19 Apr, 2024
My wife and I took a trip to Washington, D.C. to the Museum of the Bible. This is an amazing place with collections of Bible history, Bible characters and Bible applications for the interested viewer. We especially toured the fourth floor that contains more than 600 artifacts and 50 media programs introducing us to the Bible's history, from handwritten scrolls to mobile devices. As a theologian and typographer, I was interested in not merely the history of the printed Word of God, but also how it was printed through the ages. I was especially fascinated by the delicate and intricate versals, those opening letters and flourishes to the printing. I have gathered a number of the versals and cleaned them up using Adobe Photoshop for display.  The pages below contains some of the oldest versals used in Bible typography and printing. They are historically valuable and worth our time and effort in viewing and understanding. Enjoy them!
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