Monograms beguile me.

I first came across them when I figured out that J.R.R. Tolkien’s diddy on the cover of Lord of the Rings was actually his initials:

J. R. R. T.

It took me awhile to make mine, but I finished it a few years back. You’ve probably seen it around here. It’s at the end of every post:

Lancelot Timothy Michael Schaubert

A monogram, when done well, symbolizes the person into a single reprintable character. It’s more than a sum of letters. It takes the sum of a person’s names, the sum of their gifts and their quirks and then amalgamates all of it into one iconographic. Tolkien’s isn’t just JRRT. It’s more. It’s a part of his world. You could feasibly find it carved into a ruin somewhere in Middle Earth. It’s the man and the myth combined into a symbol.

No wonder some of our ancestors used them for letters instead of house seals.

Well, short story long, I had two monogram projects going. One, belonging to my bride Kiddo, I started when I fashioned my own. However, her name eludes me, escapes me. I’m Kvothe caught above that courtyard of wind with no name to speak, no monogram to write:

I can’t get hers right.

In addition, I wanted to give all of my groomsmen signet rings with monograms made by yours truly. I can’t find a jeweler who will simply take my designs and put them in a ring. If you know someone who can, let me know. I’d still like to forge those rings. I’m dying to have a custom-made Schaubert-House seal and to give that pleasure to others.

As a small consolation prize, I finished some monograms for my friends. Seven are for guys in my wedding. All of them are, in my estimation, monograms.

There’s funnier ones, like Peter ___ Corado, who refuses to tell me his middle name, even after all these years:

That other one’s Micah Paul Balu.

Then there’s my lifelong twin Andrew Graham Nash, the Portland musician, alongside Robb John Kimball Jones:

My writer friends Colby Lance Williams, Ellie Ann Soderstrom and Kyle Christopher Welch next to an old, old, frickityfrackin’ old logo from a writer’s group I helped start:

Heath Ryan Schaubert (my brother) next to Jordan Ryan Schultz (my “fraternal twin”):

Derek Hammeke of Key Productions:

The Gonzalez’s:

And finally Jordan Howerton who to this day remains in my phone contact list as “Jo Jo How.” He started “The j” back in college – sorry Jordan, couldn’t work an empty stroller into yours. His monogram is below to the right of Taylor Ann Collier’s (formerly Hahn – “The Amazin’ Asian”).

To give you an idea of how much thought I put into each of these, I’ll explain Taylor’s. A taylor, historically, is a tailor – one who creates fashionable clothing custom fit for a patron. I wanted something needle-point taut, but also Asian. I couldn’t use Korean – from Taylor’s home country – because many Korean characters are too round. The best blend of sleek needle-point and Asian is Japanese. T in Katakana Japanese came up as weird version of To on my phone. Dang cellphone, never transliterating right and always dying! A came up as Ya. C came up as Ko or Ro. I made do and bended them between both letter systems. Those letters became this:

What about you?

Have you ever checked into your family crest
or sealed a letter with a monogram?

Happy sealing!