Modern Phoenician Font and the Pyrgi Tablet

This is a "ready for print" copy of my first project.  My initial concept was to redesign a font set.  I settled on the Phoenician alphabet and decided to display my font by re-envisioning the Pyrgi Tablet.  The original is a gold leaf that is approximately 7 1/2 feet tall by 3 1/2 feet wide.  Due to price and availability, my final printout will not be nearly as grand.  I am currently waiting for an availability estimate for print on a faux gold paper either at either 18" by 24" or 24" by 36".  In addition to the text, I also wanted to conceptually illustrate the Phoenician goddess, Ashtart, and the temple built in her honor.  The text translates as follows:

To lady Ashtarot,
This is the holy place, which was made, and which was given by Tiberius Velianas who reigns over the Caerites. During the month of the sacrifice to the Sun, as a gift in the temple, he built an aedicula. For Ashtarot raised him with Her hand to reign for three years from the month of Churvar, from the day of the burial of the divinity [onward]. And the years of the statue of the divinity in the temple [shall be] as many years as the stars above.

Transcription from Hildegard Temporini, Joseph Vogt, Wolfgang Haase. 1972. Aufsteig und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, vol. 2, part 25. P.201.

Some minor points of clarification:

Phoenician, much like any other ancient language, is riddled with dialectical variations, given that it was major language in most of the known ancient western world during its use.  Much of my personal interpretations are bound by a fairly simple rule: of the letters and texts that I surveyed, any letters which had variation, I felt more at ease in manipulating, and any letters which were more uniform amongst the surveys, I took decidedly less artistic liberties with.

Ashtart is also another point of much conflicted information.  This was due to the fact that her persona was also a widely used and adapted figure amongst the ancient western world.  She is known as ʻṯtrt ("ʻAṯtart" or "ʻAthtart") in Ugaritic, עשתרת (Ashtoret, singular, or Ashtarot, plural) in Hebrew, Ishtar or Ashtart in Etruscan, etc. and as "ʻštrt" (ʻAshtart) in Phoenician.  Astart was connected with fertility, sexuality, and war (or any combination of the three, depending on the region and context). Her symbols were the lion, the horse, the sphinx, the dove, and a star within a circle indicating the planet Venus (but these are subject to region and context, as well). Pictorial representations often show her naked (but not always). She has been known as the deified evening star (the moon, or lunar goddess, if you will, and is also known as the heavenly goddess, dictating all celestial affairs).  So again, I survey many sources and attempted to create a representational image based on the Phoenician incarnation of Ashtart.

Pyrgi Gold Tablet featuring Designed Phoenician Font

Here is my Project in the intermediate phase:

As you can see there is a placeholder box for an image of the goddess Ashtarot's temple / shrine at the bottom, that I am currently developing.  This is an 18 x 24 in. image to be printed in poster format.  The text is from the 3rd Pyrgi Golden Tablet, which is a short passage concerning the aforementioned image.  I'd like to print this on a gold fibre sheet, but for cost's sake, a reasonable faux facsimile will have to do.

Simulated Background Imagery

The Original Pyrgi Golden Tablet

Font Design Process

Here's a brief look at how to turn a hand-sketched image into a compound shape for use in most font design software.

 

Step 1: Draft out and fill in your character image.  Make it as large as you like (bigger isn't always better if your design is simple, but it is recommended to show up any minute inconsistencies).  Keep it nice and clean, so you don't have to erase any smudges or sketch lines later on in the process.

 Step 2: Scan your image.  Get a very high resolution scan to make your character image as accurate as possible.

 Step 3: Bring your scanned image into Photoshop.

 Step 4: Use your magic wand to select your character out of the background.  Keep adjusting the tolerance until you get the desired selection and/or de/select any additional information.

 Step 5: Make a work path from your selection (bottom of the Path panel, middle button).

 Step 6: Copy your work path.

 Step 7: Open Illustrator and paste your work path into place as a Compound Shape.

 Step 8: When selected, your path should show all the various points and anchors, which usually creates a funky copy of what you intended your character image to look like.

 Step 9: Get rid of the unnecessary points and adjust your anchors accordingly.

 Step 10: OPTIONAL - If you created your character image directly in Illustrator, make sure to use the Shape Builder Tool to join multiple shapes (click and drag) and cut out the negative shapes inside the characters (alt-click).

Step 11: Set you character image to black stroke and empty fill and save your character image to a CorrespondingLetter.ai file (i.e. A.ai).

Designing a Font Project: Phoenician Alphabet

I'm pushing forward with my first project: designing a Phoenician font.  Why Phoenician?  For me, Phoenician is one of the last links between the graphic/symbolic embodiment of a letter/character and it's meaning, as found in Heiroglyphics, and the innocuous, meaningless symbols found in modern alphabets.  As a graphic designer, I feel a responsibility to design something with meaning, beyond just simply stylizing the pre-existing.  I want to utilize calligraphy, or beautiful writing, to craft the characters/symbols into a more pictographically representative state.

Here are some links to some standardized Phoenician Alphabet samples:

 

 

 

Here are some links to some original Phoenician Text samples:

 

 

 

My challenge for this project is two-fold: I must create a beautifully crafted font, yes, but I also need to find a meaningful way to utilize this font.  I need to find a way in which to use this font in an expressive text of some sort or in some meaningful way that captures the beauty of their crafting.  I have a feeling that the way in which I will accomplish this will present itself during the creation of the font, but am in no way depending on some sort of "enlightenment" during the process to solely guide my decisions.

 

Here are some links to text and discussion on the Phoenician Alphabet:

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/phoenician.htm

http://phoenicia.org/alphabet.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet

http://www.ancientscripts.com/phoenician.html

 

Here are a few of my crafting resource texts:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-calligraphers-bible-david-harris/1005762908?ean=9780764156151

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/type-matters-jim-williams/1112426875?ean=9781858945675

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/type-idea-index-jim-krause/1112247002?ean=9781581808063

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Design-Matters/Capsule/e/9781592537389

The Think Tank

Ideas for projects (just spitting out anything that comes to mind right now):

Design a Font:  I had a project in a previous class to design a partial font set for "hamburgefons" presentation.  I really liked the project and ended up designing a second Font for the project.  I'd like to expand one of the two Fonts (or possibly design a new Font) beyond the "hamburgefons" application and into a fully functional font.  I'm particularly interested in Fonts that fall outside the normal typeset.  For instance, I created a Runic Font and a Greek Font for "hamburgefons" presentation.  I'm also toying around with the idea of creating a Hieroglyphic Font, but the bottom line is that I want to make a fully functional set of fonts that is as true in structure to the original Font as possible, while still making it my own (stylistically).

Design a Magazine:  I really enjoyed my page layout class and the various projects we had created.  I'd like to go beyond the two-page spreads and single advertisements and create my own magazine from cover to cover.  I'm thinking that this idea might be too ambitious, but it's an idea I just had to get out there.

Design a Web-Circular:  I've worked for several retail companies on and off over the last decade and I've had the opportunity to watch the creation and growth of web-based advertisement circulars.  My web-based skills are fairly infantile, but at least creating a flash or other program based web-circular for use on the web would be interesting.

Design a Product Line Design:  I had a product design project in a previous class, but it was a small, three-item design project (I chose to design labels for exotic hot sauces).  I also designed a carrier for my products, but I was thinking about designing an entire line of various products (i.e. - dried peppers, pepper rubs, salsas, etc. for sake of following the hot sauce vein) and maybe some paraphernalia (t-shirts, posters, bumper stickers, etc.).

Design a Design-It-Yourself Instructional Program:  In a previous class, I designed an instructional video for a compound exercise movement.  I'd like to take that idea, but expand the exercise database (one exercise does not a workout make!) and allow the user to create their own customizable workout regiment.  My Macromedia knowledge base is a bit limited, but I'm pretty sure that this would be a doable project.

Create a Series of Cinemagraphs:  I made a short series of cinemagraphs least semester based on the concept of Anxiety.  I'd like to do a larger series (8 to 10) based on the concept of Choice and some of the various conditions that either affect or are affected by Choice.

That's all for now.  I'll be sure to edit this post further...

Introductions

My name is Josh Leach and this blog will be used primarily for my creative research and projects for the TEL-T 434: Advanced Production Workshop Class.  I am beginning what will (hopefully) be my final year of college at Indiana University South Bend, where I am pursuing a bachelor's degree in New Media, with a full concentration in Graphic Design.