Happy New Year 2001

Happy New Year 2001

SYMMETRY. Rotation by 90° turns the first letters of the family member names into HAPPY NEW YEAR.

INSPIRATION. Created for my parents as an annual greeting card.

STORY. Every year since I was in high school I have produced a greeting card for my parents. This card features the names of my parents (Lester and Pearl), my siblings and myself (Scott, Grant, Gail), our respective spouses (Amy, Chilju, Vaughn), and our respective children (Gabriel, Michael & Eliott, Kyra & Liana). Eliott usually goes by his Korean name Han Sol.
     I’ve kept family members grouped together, with names listed from oldest to youngest within each family. The only exception is Kyra, who is older than Liana; I couldn’t find a way to list Kyra first. Note that families align neatly with the boundaries of the words HAPPY, NEW and YEAR. Also note that the letters in each name are drawn to match the style of the initial capital.
     I produced an earlier version of this design in 1995, in honor of the births of Grant and Chilju’s son Eliott, and Gail and Vaughn’s daughter Kyra. Two years ago Gail had a second daughter Liana, and I had a son Gabriel, so I reworked the design to include two more names. The trickiest part is the overlapping G and L, which make EA.