Have you ever been to Kati Roll????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so this post is late in terms of when this happened (this being what im about to write)

but i went to the new York public library this past Friday to go see the Gutenberg Bible and visit the Scriptorium!!

                                                     The Scriptorium at the NY Public Library

The Gutenberg bible wasn't as epic as I expected, but it was defnitely one of a kind. And in the show, there are literally hundreds of bibles on display, and you can clearly see how all the bibles before th Gutenberg Bible are composed similarly one way, The the Gutenberg bible which is so radically different, and then all the bibles that followed and how they are all different variations of the Gutenberg bible for th most part!!

But what im here to talk about is the Script pages I got from the scriptorium, and its relation to "everyday life"

So i went to the scriptorium and I got these "write your own name in these letter forms" kind of sheets

hand lettering sheet from scriptorium

As you notice, there are Hebrew, latin, and greek letter forms on the three sheets.!!

NOW.......after ,my trip to the NY Public Library, right across the street from bryant park, is SUNY optometry medical school, which is where my girlfriend goes to school, so i spent the rest of my evening with my little slice of heaven (aka my lady!!!)

Now my girlfriend is indian, gujarati to be specific....and obviously has a hankering for indian food (vegetarian since she is one) so she suggested we go to this new place called Kati Roll......which was a block away from Bryant park, on the other side of the street!!!!! (god everything in my story is so conveniently close!!!....suspiciously close...WHO ARE YOU DAMMIT!!! okay sorry i got carried away)

okay....so we went to Kati Roll, which was delicioso i might say!! (I had 2 chicken and egg rolls in case you wondered) but in this restaurant, which was a cute little hole in the wall place, they had framed posters of old Indian movies on the walls and i noticed something.

The script/typeface used on the posters was similar to the Hebrew Stam alphabet i learned about in the scriptorium.

NOTICE THE SIMILARITIES.





obviously they are not identical, one script being hebrew and the other hindi, but notice how they seem to stem from a common form.



In the hebrew script page, the letters have thin ascenders and descenders for the most part, and the body of each character is very thick/fat. There are fat horizontal forms at the top of each character as well. The letters are very pointed off and sharp.



In the Hindi script, similarly there are thin ascenders and descenders, with thick bodies. There are also fat horizontal shapes at the top of each letters, but these shapes go further in that they then connect all of the letters together...(most of the letters i mean, not ALL!!!). The defference however being that the hindi script is more rounded and curvy, unlike the sharp pointed hebrew script.


you know now that im learning all of these things about art, graphic design etc. etc. i am just noticing things like this everywhere. Instead of seeing a poster for what it is, Im looking at a poster and noticing where the artist used the smudge tool on photoshop when making the poster. And the same goes for type, like how i much stated. I just happened to notice this similarity, and obviously im not as educated in the Graphic design arts as my Graphic designer friends are, since im an illustrator/fine artist, but with this History of Visual Communications class Im getting there.

all in all i had a great evening. went to the ny public library, was educated on type forms and its relation to the modern world, had great food, and had a romantic time with my little "spice box" of a girlfriend!!!

the end!!

all photos where taken by me, and if you like good food, check out Kati Roll (link below)

www.thekatirollcompany.com