Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Word of the Day: Hedcut
Hedcut is a style of drawing that's been used by the Wall Street Journal since 1979. The drawings are done with a stipple technique that produces pictures that resembled the engravings on stock certificates and currency. Hedcuts have a "machine made" quality to them but they're done by hand with pen and ink. Producing a finished hedcut can take up to five hours. Noli Novak is one of the WSJ illustrators who produce hedcuts. She has collection of some of her work online.
The animals on the covers of O'Reilly books are also hand drawn, made to look like wood and copperplate engravings.
I love this style of industrial art. It has a really clean look that you don't get from a photograph. The fact that these images are not generated by computer but drawn by hand also appeals to me. Not to denigrate computer artists but it's nice to know that old fashioned pen and ink skills are still useful. Maybe it's because a lot of the pen and ink drawings I did in school were of a similar style. My approach to getting through a boring class was to work on an obssessively detailed drawing made from tiny little dots and lines.
The animals on the covers of O'Reilly books are also hand drawn, made to look like wood and copperplate engravings.
I love this style of industrial art. It has a really clean look that you don't get from a photograph. The fact that these images are not generated by computer but drawn by hand also appeals to me. Not to denigrate computer artists but it's nice to know that old fashioned pen and ink skills are still useful. Maybe it's because a lot of the pen and ink drawings I did in school were of a similar style. My approach to getting through a boring class was to work on an obssessively detailed drawing made from tiny little dots and lines.
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