Category: Joy

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I wish my sis­ter could have expe­ri­enced that spe­cial occa­sion called the “Father-​Daughter Dance” when she was in ele­men­tary school, but our father died from emphy­se­ma when she was 7 years old. The father-​daughter dance, also called “Father & Daugh­ter Dance,” “Dad­dy Dance,” or “Dad & Daugh­ter Dance,” is usu­al­ly held in 5th or 6th grade.

Accord­ing to this arti­cle,

The first strong male bond girls have is with their father’s and this event teach­es young girls what it means to be treat­ed with love and respect.  The goal is that father’s will con­tin­ue to be pos­i­tive role mod­els and that these girls will have healthy rela­tion­ships as teens and adults as a result.

For­tu­nate­ly, my sis­ter did have a pos­i­tive child­hood and mar­ried a won­der­ful man who proud­ly took his daugh­ter to their Father-​Daughter Dance … or should I say, she took him?

One last thing about this Amper­Art piece, is that our dad was a bar­ber, so I select­ed a lock of my sis­ter’s brunette hair (via com­put­er graph­ics) as the amper­sand. Dad­dy would have sure­ly been proud of her hair.

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Shoebox Letters: a precious gift for Father’s Day

I had the priv­i­lege of set­ting the type in a very spe­cial book for author Clay­ton Brizen­dine. This book is a col­lec­tion of actu­al let­ters writ­ten from daugh­ters to their fathers. It is pure raw emo­tion, stat­ing every­thing from admi­ra­tion to fun times to bit­ter upsets, but always men­tion­ing love.

 

Every review is 5 stars, includ­ing mine:

I did­n’t buy this book, and I did­n’t read it as a nor­mal per­son would. I set the type.

As I was design­ing this book for the author, I found myself laugh­ing out loud at some of the expe­ri­ences the daugh­ters relayed about the dumb things their dads would do, and found myself sob­bing at tear-​jerking moments of deep love and bond­ing, or of loss and hurt. The most endear­ing part was retouch­ing the pre­cious old pho­tographs and plac­ing them next to words that described the daugh­ters’ most cher­ished moments with their dads. Final­ly, in proof­ing the text, I did read the entire piece front to back, and it was a tru­ly aston­ish­ing com­pi­la­tion of let­ters that range from the great­est love and devo­tion and pride for fathers to sor­row­ful accounts of resent­ment and bro­ken­ness. Every let­ter, how­ev­er, does express a love of some sort for each dad from his daughter.

Clay Brizendine’s pro­found essay for each set of let­ters — and his pas­sion for enlight­en­ing his read­ers, show­ing how to heal and bond rela­tion­ships through the pow­er of let­ter writ­ing — makes this book a real joy to read and to learn from. This is the ulti­mate Father’s Day gift.

Final­ly, in work­ing with Clay I have real­ized he is tru­ly a man of char­ac­ter, hon­est and sin­cere, and wish­es most of all to give his read­ers an enlight­en­ing, enter­tain­ing and mem­o­rable experience.

This could have gone to press soon­er, if tears had­n’t cloud­ed this design­er’s workspace.

Am I pro­mot­ing Clay’s book? You bet I am! This book  is one of the most pre­cious gifts you could give your dad this Father’s Day, whether you’re a teen, mid-​age or a senior daugh­ter your­self. There’s bound to be a sto­ry that both of you relate to.

Read all the mov­ing tes­ti­mo­ni­als, or order a copy for your dad, here.

To all fathers, Hap­py Father’s Day. And to my sis­ter and broth­ers, you turned out real good, even with­out a dad for most of your child­hood. (For­tu­nate­ly, our fam­i­ly was rich with friends and rel­a­tives who stepped in when need­ed. Thanks espe­cial­ly to Gilbert. He deserves his own Amper­Art piece!)

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PRODUCTION NOTES:
Original size: 20×30 inches
Programs: Illustrator, Photoshop
Font: Vladimir Script

CREDITS:
Bow image: www​.hawai​ikawaii​.net (a blog by a student in Sweden about “kawaii, unicorns, flamingos, rainbows, and cupcakes…cute and fun in any shape or form”)
Hair color reference: www​.lat​est​-hair​styles​.com (My sister’s a brunette; I think I got the color pretty close.)