John and Barbara 50th anniversary

For our parents’ golden wedding anniversary, my sister and I decided we wanted to give them a unique gift, personal to them so we commisioned letter cutter
Anna Parker to produce something special.

We wanted to use a pebble which was a good excuse to go beachcombing on Charmouth beach. Having found the right pebble (and several fossils) we handed it over to Anna with the brief to include their initials, J & B, and to include a bit of gold.

After some initial sketches and a bit of experimentation, Anna suggested creating an ampersand from two gold rings. We liked the idea and I asked her to try a version with the ampersand linking the letters. After a final drawing on the pebble was approved, Anna set to work.

The final design worked beautifully, the crispness of the letters contrasting with the rough finish as the rings ‘break through’ the surface. And just enough gold leaf on the rings to give it a real spark.

It was a pleaseure to work with someone who had such an affinity with the material producing a design in response to the size and curve of that particular pebble.

The simplicity of the design is deceptive, the result of many stages of development and discussion. And this lies at the heart of all good design, the lengthy process of refinement to produce something that is just right. For me, this is best summed up by a quote from Mark Twain. On writing to a friend he said: “I’m sorry this letter is so long, I didn’t have time to write a short one.”