Gerald Fleuss is a freelance calligrapher, letterer, and illustrator specialising in heraldic design and painting, a practice which he started in 1974. He is a Fellow of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators and a member of the Art Workers’ Guild and the Double Crown Club. His current work has included an Honorary Fellowship scroll for Carre’s Grammar School, the illuminated Benefactors Book for Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, a richly decorated retirement address for the Chairman of Ben Line, Sir David Thomson, hand-drawn maps for To War with Paper & Brush - Captain Edward Ardizzone, Official War Artist by Malcolm Yorke (Fleece Press)and book jacket designs and maps for the British Library. He recently completed Vol. VI of the Royal Ulster Constabulary Book of Remembrance. With his work partner Patricia Gidney he is official calligrapher to St Paul’s Cathedral, London and has worked regularly for the College of Arms since 1981.
In 2007, he was awarded a Senior Research Fellowship under the auspices of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning through Design, a partnership between the University of Brighton, the Royal College of Art, the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Victoria & Albert Museum. His project, ‘The Legacy of Edward Johnston’ aims to bring into the public domain a range of archival materials relating to the revival of the broad-edged pen by the calligrapher/typographer Edward Johnston at the beginning of the twentieth century. In structuring these archival materials the project is making available the knowledge Johnston accumulated along with an awareness of the powerful effect it has had in shaping the design of our contemporary environment. It builds on the work Fleuss has been engaged in since 1995 as co-founder and current Director of the Edward Johnston Foundation. The Foundation is dedicated to the promotion of a public awareness of calligraphy, not only as an art form in its own right but also as the seed and reference point for many other lettering applications including modern typeface design. These aims are backed with four objectives:
