Inscribing, pressing, carving the words on the porcelain surface has led me to develop a particular technique and this, in turn, put me to thinking about creating a font. The main tool I am using is an angled, moderately sharp-edged box wood tool. I chose this tool because it is not the perfect tool to use. The difficulty of handling this tool ensures that the text does not become too even and crisp, more in keeping with the largely informal making of the porcelain forms.
The font has very many similarities with cuneiform writing, runes and classical stone lettering found in Ancient Greece and Rome (not forgetting ancient graffiti). The first made with a wooden, wedge-shaped stylus, the second a knife and a chisel for the latter. The respective tools and materials dictate to a large extent how the font evolves. The above font is a first draft distillation of the lettering I am using on the porcelain. It forms a very decipherable cypher, which is easy to read and based on the principle of two strokes per letter. I shall rethink about this in view of some of the letters being made up of three strokes. This is a relatively straightforward development. It is just that I wanted to document this now while the idea has some momentum. Subsequently, I may also include minuscules, numbers and symbols.
I intend to convert this into a font that I can use as type on the computer. I have opted to use Font Forge software which, although not the simplest, seems to offer a wide range of features. There is also a large number of tutorials online to help with learning. I can then use it to type documents and on sculptures. As for a name? I am currently thinking of Porcelana although this may change.