Designing the Scripts for The Lord of the Rings

And I also know, before we end, that you've written, you've created lots and lots and lots of different elements and different scripts.

And you showed me some of your incredible work before we left.

and there was right at the end, it's like the style guide, which you've mentioned already.

Can you tell us a little bit more just very quickly about the style guide? Because it covers so many different styles of lettering.

Absolutely.

For a movie of the kind that The Lord of the Rings is, that's the kind of movie that generates a ton of merchandise.

So film companies, when they make this kind of film, always produce a thing called a style guide, which potential licensees to produce merchandise must purchase the style guide and adhere to all the rules set out therein.

This is the approved lettering.

These are the approved graphics.

This is the approved packaging.

This is what you must do with the logo.

This whole kind of document that lays down the law for how you must present your Lord of the Rings product.

And so for me, as I said earlier, when I was working on The Lord of the Rings, it was just a weekend and nighttime, part-time thing while I still had a real, a proper job.

But when they'd wrapped the film and the New Line Cinema wanted to make their style guide, they approached me, they tracked down the lettering and maps guy and said, Mr. Reeve, can you do some work for our style guide for us, for these films? And I said, show us your, what do you need me to do? And they showed me a list, which was a comprehensive list and included a lot of work I could see.

And that was the point at which I had to make the decision do I stay at the bank for another 100 years or do I jump off and be a full-time artist, which is what I did.

It's leap into the unknown, not knowing where your next paycheck will come from, but something always turned up.

So for the first few years, it was Lord of the Rings spin-offs, including the style guide, which in their list needed alphabets, scripts, name treatments of the various people, races, events, and what have you, within Middle-earth in the story.

So they needed things in a Gondorian script and a Rohan script and the write or the way Ents could be presented or the Southrons or the Easterlings.

These many different characters and peoples each needed their own calligraphic treatment just to imbue their part of the world with some sort of flavour.

So this enormous list I just sat down and created name treatments for all the different characters and this is how Elvish can be presented and what have you.

Also on the list was they needed a map of Middle Earth for all publicity and merchandising and essentially to form the wallpaper of all the product packaging and what have you was this map of Middle Earth they said but they wanted a 25 inches square so I went out bought a sheet of paper big enough to make a 25 square inch map took it home and made the map of Middle Earth on this seven dollar sheet of paper in my garage and did all the calligraphy the line work and the calligraphy then threw the watercolor at the thing to give it the coloring it needed and discovered to my horror that I had chosen the wrong kind of paper because to get the size they needed, I had gone out and bought a piece of what turned out to be printmaking paper, which lacks the sizing agents that watercolor paper has.

So this thing took forever to dry with all this watercolor on it.

look at what I'd done, found that the last piece of calligraphy I had done was just this bleed of red ink.

And another heart-stopping moment.

And there was no time to do this again.

And I also know, before we end, that you've written, you've created lots and lots and lots of different elements and different scripts.

And you showed me some of your incredible work before we left.

and there was right at the end, it's like the style guide, which you've mentioned already.

Can you tell us a little bit more just very quickly about the style guide? Because it covers so many different styles of lettering.

Absolutely.

For a movie of the kind that The Lord of the Rings is, that's the kind of movie that generates a ton of merchandise.

So film companies, when they make this kind of film, always produce a thing called a style guide, which potential licensees to produce merchandise must purchase the style guide and adhere to all the rules set out therein.

This is the approved lettering.

These are the approved graphics.

This is the approved packaging.

This is what you must do with the logo.

This whole kind of document that lays down the law for how you must present your Lord of the Rings product.

And so for me, as I said earlier, when I was working on The Lord of the Rings, it was just a weekend and nighttime, part-time thing while I still had a real, a proper job.

But when they'd wrapped the film and the New Line Cinema wanted to make their style guide, they approached me, they tracked down the lettering and maps guy and said, Mr. Reeve, can you do some work for our style guide for us, for these films? And I said, show us your, what do you need me to do? And they showed me a list, which was a comprehensive list and included a lot of work I could see.

And that was the point at which I had to make the decision do I stay at the bank for another 100 years or do I jump off and be a full-time artist, which is what I did.

It's leap into the unknown, not knowing where your next paycheck will come from, but something always turned up.

So for the first few years, it was Lord of the Rings spin-offs, including the style guide, which in their list needed alphabets, scripts, name treatments of the various people, races, events, and what have you, within Middle-earth in the story.

So they needed things in a Gondorian script and a Rohan script and the write or the way Ents could be presented or the Southrons or the Easterlings.

These many different characters and peoples each needed their own calligraphic treatment just to imbue their part of the world with some sort of flavour.

So this enormous list I just sat down and created name treatments for all the different characters and this is how Elvish can be presented and what have you.

Also on the list was they needed a map of Middle Earth for all publicity and merchandising and essentially to form the wallpaper of all the product packaging and what have you was this map of Middle Earth they said but they wanted a 25 inches square so I went out bought a sheet of paper big enough to make a 25 square inch map took it home and made the map of Middle Earth on this seven dollar sheet of paper in my garage and did all the calligraphy the line work and the calligraphy then threw the watercolor at the thing to give it the coloring it needed and discovered to my horror that I had chosen the wrong kind of paper because to get the size they needed, I had gone out and bought a piece of what turned out to be printmaking paper, which lacks the sizing agents that watercolor paper has.

So this thing took forever to dry with all this watercolor on it.

look at what I'd done, found that the last piece of calligraphy I had done was just this bleed of red ink.

And another heart-stopping moment.

And there was no time to do this again.