36 days of type - I

Today was the turn of the letter I and so it was either international style or initial. Having been previously fairly set on doing a style on international/swiss style I today had a change of heart and decided that modernism would be too boring, I'm not entirely opposed to doing san-serif but the issue is the letter it falls on as there is not a large number of ways to innovate when drawing a pure form sans I and I want the emphasis to be on the letterform always and not on the surrounding decoration. With this in mind, I went for initialis or the initial letter, found at the beginning of a paragraph.

This info was found online:
"An initial letter is a large first letter of a paragraph, set in a decorative or graphic way. It offers a visual cue that can signify the beginning of an entire work, such as a book or article, as well as chapters or significant paragraphs within a work. Initial letters liven up a page by adding color, emphasis, and typographic interest.

A LONG HISTORY

Scribes used fancy initials to begin chapters and decorate pages in medieval manuscripts – long before the invention of moveable type. The appearance of very simplistic initial capitals dates back as far as the 5th century. Their design and complexity expanded in the highly decorated illuminated manuscripts of the 8th century and onward, with very ornate initials gracing the pages of religious and historical texts.

After the use of hand-set metal type became widespread in Europe in the 15th century, decorative initials still held a place of importance. Space would be left at the beginning of selected passages for initial letters to be drawn in later by a scribe or illustrator. They might consist of geometric shapes and patterns, or contain organic elements such as foliage and animals. Some incorporated biblical and historic scenes, and these were referred to as historiated initials. Oftentimes they were decorated with gold leaf, thus the term illuminated manuscript."



I then began to sketch my elaborate, decorative I and but some consideration into its backing decoration:

With the basic concept on paper, it was time to get them onto illustrator add detail:

Then I was then ready for a hand-illustrated border and subtle colour pallet based upon printed ink on white paper in the final tiles:

"I is for initial - elaborate initial capitals, often surrounded by a border, have been used since the 5th century to add emphasis and decoration to the beginning of a paragraph"