Drawing a wordmark with a brush

Sumi’s customers judge ink by how it moves on paper. A wordmark set in a typeface would have said nothing about that, so we decided to draw it.

Three hundred attempts

We worked with a calligrapher in Kyoto over two afternoons. Each attempt used the same stick, ground for the same number of turns, on the same paper. We kept every sheet.

The version we chose was the 212th. It has a dry edge on the last stroke where the brush ran out, which is the thing Sumi’s customers look for in a good ink.

From paper to screen

We scanned the sheet at 2400 dpi and traced it by hand, keeping the dry edge but closing the gaps that would fill in at small sizes. There are three versions: one for the web, one for print and one for the seal on each box.

What we would do again

Drawing by hand took longer than setting type, and it cost less than a week of revisions on a typeset logo would have. The client had an answer to every question about the mark, because they were in the room when it was made.