Why choose a lettercutter?

Just as it is possible to choose between anything handmade and its mass-produced alternative, so too can memorials be bought virtually off the shelf or be individually commissioned. So what makes a hand-carved memorial different? Every memorial commissioned through Memorials by Artists is hand carved by one of our designer/lettercutters, who create their own designs rather than working to a pattern. Each piece is considered as a creative opportunity, rather than a mere product and no two memorials are ever the same. All the lettercutters we work with use their own hand drawn letterforms. Although some now use a computer to help assemble and adjust the letters within a design, the style of letter will always be specially drawn for or matched to the job. It can take ten to thirty minutes to cut a single letter by hand, but the result is far subtler and livelier than an inscription that has been cut by machine. By contrast, memorials supplied by the trade are usually produced using standard computerised fonts, with the inscription being sandblasted onto the face of the stone through a mechanically cut rubber stencil. While a memorial produced by the trade may provide what is needed at a lower cost, it is unlikely that the result will be comparable, lacking the sensitivity of artistic design and the liveliness and depth of good hand-carved lettering.