Sheet 08.2IdentityPencil, fine liner, marker, digitalAt the scale of a stamp

Duniya

A name, a city and four elements. The first page reads fire + water + air + earth (clay); the last ones are a framed wordmark, a two-letter monogram and a row of pen colours.

Pages: 11: nine in pencil, fine liner and marker, two digital
On the marks: duniya · New York
Colours: Gold, maroon, orange, olive and brown pen; cream on tan for the screen

01The wordmark in its own colours, cream on tan, from my digital version.

Fire, water, air, and earth (clay).

The concept page sets the four elements down with their old triangles: fire and air point up, water and earth point down, air and earth crossed by a bar. Then each element gets a circle of its own, first inked, then tried again in pencil.

Fire

Tall flames packed into a circle, in fine liner. In pencil the flame shrinks to a single drop with a curl inside it.

Wave, flame and wind, braided.

On the concept page the triangles stack into stars, an hourglass holds fire, water, wind and earth in layers, and two inked roundels braid wave, flame and wind together. A page of pencil roundels keeps trying the mix.

Pencil and pen page headed DUNIYA: fire + water + air + earth (clay), the four alchemical triangles, star-of-triangle combinations, two inked roundels of wave, flame and wind, and earth studies with notes. — 02The concept page, headed DUNIYA.

Five pencil roundels combining the elements: wave and flame, wind and water lines, diagonal bands, an organic radial, a crossed square. — 03Five ways to share a circle.

The wordmark

A frame that starts from the d.

The lettering is written with a chisel marker: rounded lower case, a dot set inside the bowl of the u, and the stroke of the d carried up and over into a frame that wraps the word. It’s tried open and closed, in gold and in maroon.

Five maroon-marker duniya wordmarks with frame rules, and gold studies of the dotted u and of nu. — 04Five in maroon marker, and the dotted u on its own.

A large gold-brown hand-lettered duniya, the d’s stroke running up into a frame rule above and below. — 05Drawn large, in gold.

The pen tests in the corner.

In the corner of the frames page, a row of pen tests: orange, olive, maroon, brown, and a black exclamation mark. Here they are, sampled from the page and put on the wordmark, beside the gold I drew it in and the cream on tan it ended in.

Two gold duniya wordmarks in closed frames, one maroon in an open frame, and pen colour tests in orange, olive, maroon and brown. — 06Frames closed and open, and the pen tests in the corner.

Monogram

Two letters in a square.

For the smallest uses, the word shrinks to du. The d’s ascender becomes one side of a square frame. Two hand studies, one with a plain d and one with a looped d, then the clean version.

Two maroon du monograms in square frames, one with a simple d and one with a looped d, the d’s ascender joining the frame. — 07The du monogram, two ways, in maroon marker.

Identity study, undated.