affinity designer Art Deco letters

[Kasper-V]

I recently discovered the work of Brazilian illustrator José Carlos de Brito e Cunha, thanks to a YouTube video by Pete Beard. I'm trying my hand at copying some of his fantastic design elements, and here's an example. I've had a go at reproducing the lettering on this 1927 Para Todos ('For Everyone') magazine cover. Carlos' letters were hand-drawn of course, and so not quite as consistent as a letterpress typeface. Also, I thought the R was inelegant and the O's ... well, wimpy, so I've 'improved' them (or not!). Being hand-drawn, Carlos was able to balance the spacing between them; I've only made a small change with 'OD' and 'OS'. Feel free to criticise!

The zig-zag fill is made up of the shape and lines at the bottom, which are clipped inside the letter outline. A little bit of inspired guessing helped with the A and S. The letter shapes are made from rectangles, donuts, segments, and a spiral expanded-stroke for the tail of the R. The S also involved a bit of juggling with extra nodes to get smooth curves top & bottom.

 

This is how I made the zig-zag fill. I started with a rectangle, converted to curves (Ctrl or Cmd + Enter) then added four nodes to the right-hand side. I selected every other one and moved them to the left, holding down Shift to constrain them horizontally. Next I drew a vertical line with the Pen tool, added nodes and moved some to match the first shape. Then I copied the line and spaced all the elements till they looked OK. Finally I grouped them (Ctrl + G) and named the group: I know from experience that by next week I shall have completely forgotten what it is!

[Kasper-V]

It looks good (though I say it myself!) but ... it's almost illegible! the three lower lines have a yellow overly FX and various blend modes.

[Ldina]

With the red background, it definitely assaults the ole eyeballs!! 😵‍💫

[DelN]

Great work!

I am fascinated by some of the old typefaces that you can find on old posters and book covers. I've never heard of the Brazilian illustrator José Carlos de Brito e Cunha, so I will have to check him out.

 

[Alfred]

On 4/5/2025 at 6:07 PM, Kasper-V said:

I've had a go at reproducing the lettering on this 1927 Para Todos ('For Everyone') magazine cover. Carlos' letters were hand-drawn of course, and so not quite as consistent as a letterpress typeface. Also, I thought the R was inelegant and the O's ... well, wimpy, so I've 'improved' them (or not!). Being hand-drawn, Carlos was able to balance the spacing between them; I've only made a small change with 'OD' and 'OS'. Feel free to criticise!

As usual, Steve, you’ve done a great job! I particularly like your enhancements of the R and the O. I feel that (as in the J. Carlos original) the S in ‘TODOS’ should be nudged to the right so that it doesn’t overlap with the preceding O. Again as in the original, the letterforms would be better balanced if the weight of the zigzags were reduced; on a similar note, I’m not convinced that thickening the left side of the A has done it any favours.