DECORATIVE INITIALS: Design Source Book 08 By Judy Balchin

DECORATIVE INITIALS
Design Source Book 08
By Judy Balchin
Search Press - September 2002
ISBN 1903975425 - PB
Nonfiction / How-To Books/General Patterns

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde, MyShelf.com
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Whether you are looking to adorn a T-shirt, greetings card or are making a house nameplate, having a good source of decorative initials is a must. Here are a host of styles, ranging from early manuscript style to Art Nouveau to 60's kitsch, taking in futuristic, humorous and flowery along the way. There are some that show an object beginning with the same letter a la alphabet primers, or play with shapes. Flowers predominate, and some letters have a whole font, whereas others only appear once or twice. All are capitals, and there is a letter for each page with roughly twelve letters of a size between 2 and 4 inches.

I applaud the fact that the size is such a useful one for most design projects, and also that few of the letters are fussy or dense. I can see them being particularly useful for making personalized items, although I would have liked to see fewer floral letters. All in all, a useful book with many potential applications, and the alphabets hinted at in just a couple of letters certainly had me scribbling on a spare sheet of paper, trying to envisage the rest of the font.

This is the eighth in Search Press' very popular Design Source Book series and you are free to use a copier to make them larger or smaller, but most of them would become impossibly fiddly if shrunk, so best to think large. You can then use them for your personal use or sell the items you make for charity BUT these are NOT public domain so no commercial use is permissible. You can have a lot of fun with this book, so let your imagination run riot.