Bespoke
Honour
Boards

Goldtree; Makers of Bespoke Honour Boards
to Acknowledge Special Achievements,
Merit & Distinction

Bespoke Honour Boards

to Acknowledge Achievement,
Merit & Distinction

Going Way Back

Way back in the late 60's Steve didn't know what to with his life.
He tried sales , PR, office cleaning, solicitors clerk, postman, all of which were interesting and demanding by degrees but didn't inspire the lad but by the age of 19 he, at least, knew he couldn't work for anyone else.
At this point he just followed a pattern of self education in skills all related to craftwork and stimulated him such as letterpress printing, paper making, wood carving, engraving, etching and decorative painting.
Through letterpress printing using mechanical print presses manufactured in the 1890's; a Cropper Charlton and an Arab Platen. Using lead type he learnt the long and hard way the secrets of typography, good design and layout.

Looking at lettering engendered a love of individual characters and he began to study the history and evolution of lettering styles from the earliest examples of the Roman alphabet carved into the Trajan column 3000 years ago and how it evolved into contemporary examples such as University Roman
which despite the grand name is nothing but an elegant novelty font face.

He spent many years saving up and buying enough wood carving chisels to produce lettering at any size
in the meantime he practised carving acanthus leafage in the style of Grinley Gibbons and worked for a time in church restoration work.

He learnt that the shape and form of lettering is to a large degree influenced by the tools that are used to create it.
The stonemason followed the shapes laid down by the brush, serifs were easier to produce with a chisel than were square ended strokesused in sans serif lettering.
The brush artist hit back and created a chisel shaped brush to mimic the carver, calligraphers created square edged pens cut from the bony part of birds feathers.


That's all for now!
I'm adding a bit at a time to this about page which is meant to be rather more than a typical about page which is often no more than a mission statement OR something like; he gained two O Levels, likes to drink wine and go long distance running.



The page will end up at about this point:

Now here we are in 2011, honour boards are the perfect compromise of a lifetime utilising naturally given skills and hard worked for acquired skills and abilities.

And then it will probably go on a bit more.