A fact from Percy Delf Smith appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 7 October 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Typography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles related to Typography on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.TypographyWikipedia:WikiProject TypographyTemplate:WikiProject TypographyTypography
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Visual arts, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of visual arts on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Visual artsWikipedia:WikiProject Visual artsTemplate:WikiProject Visual artsvisual arts
There's going to be debate about what surname name to use for this article. I've seen Delf-Smith, just Percy Smith (the charity in his name is called that) and his full name.
I've decided to go with "Percy Delf Smith" as his book Civic and Memorial Lettering uses "Percy J. Delf Smith R.D.I.", so discarding the initial, as is normal for Wikipedia unless it's needed for disambiguation. I don't think any name is ideal but feel it seems reasonable to respect his preference for how his surname should be written, even if it's awkward that this makes his name a different format to his wife's. Blythwood (talk) 12:20, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
... that Percy Delf Smith's artwork included pictures inspired by his experiences in the First World War trenches and lettering in Roman capitals? Source: Experiences in the First World War: Imperial War Museum, lettering: Nash "Smith’s first published Roman capitals...headed ‘Pen-made Roman capitals founded on second-century incised inscriptions", Delf Smith's book Lettering: a Handbook of Modern Alphabets, page 2, Roman capitals have "content and atmosphere, and good examples convey a sense of stability and satisfaction" (Google Books has snippet view to verify this quote)
Overall: Approved. Article is new enough and long enough, no eligibility issues, QPQ done. Hook is interesting and cited, article has no major problems or concerns. ––FormalDude(talk)14:03, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
FormalDude, great, thanks! One minor change I've made, I've come to feel that since a lot of his pictures were imaginative based on his wartime experiences (e.g. the dance of death series) it was better to change it from "of his experiences" to "inspired by his experiences". Hope that's OK, let me know if that's a problem. Blythwood (talk) 17:09, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Blythwood: On second thought, your reword has made me notice some potential confusion. Right now it could be read as his pictures are inspired by his experiences with lettering in Roman capitals, whereas I took your intended meaning to be that his pictures include lettering in Roman capitals. Similar problem with the original wording too. Luckily I think it's an easy fix by changing it to something like "... that Percy Delf Smith's artwork included pictures inspired by his experiences in the First World War trenches and pictures of lettering in Roman capitals?". Though it may be best to not combine the two at all, and just choose to mention the WW1 inspired pictures as that seems likely to be the more interesting of the two. Let me know what you think. ––FormalDude(talk)02:43, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
FormalDude, that's fair. I've reordered it to more clearly separate the two points (when I said lettering I meant what we'd now call graphic design, as in he'd design you a memorial plaque or clockface, rather than what we'd consider fine art). And added a lot more pictures to clarify. Blythwood (talk)
Approved. Article is new enough and long enough, no eligibility issues, QPQ done. Hook is interesting and cited, article has no major problems or concerns. ––FormalDude (talk) 14:03, 5 September 2023 (UTC)