Federal Style Patterns

Title page for Federal Style Patterns 1780-1820. The title page was designed and completed in PowerCADD. One quarter of the ornamented border surrounding the text was drawn first, and it was then duplicated and flipped to complete the rectangle. Each line of text was created as a separate text box instead of a paragraph, so that we could experiment with different arrangements of text. The publisher’s logo was supplied to us via e-mail and was placed in the PowerCADD file as a PDF.

The basket of flowers is from a mantel drawing in the book and is the result of one of our favorite things about drawing in PowerCADD: we now have an extensive library of our own “clip art”.

Here's a closeup of the border.

Cornice design. This is an excellent example of how useful the math function in the Edit Window can be.

This cornice appears in Asher Benjamin’s 1797 pattern book, The Country Builder’s Assistant with an almost 45º projection [above]. The original cornice drawing was duplicated and Larry used the math function of the Edit Window to decrease the projection by the Golden Section ratio .539 and he then made any needed corrections to curves that had become misshapen. This flattened projection was used widely during the Federal Period and had been inspired by Scottish architect Robert Adam. PowerCADD makes these types of adjustments to drawings very simple. Oftentimes, he will make entablature drawings of several different projections and sizes, print them out, and hang them on the wall just as he used to do with the wooden samples.