Lettering
In the past few years, hand-lettering has proliferated industries of publishing and fashion, restaurants, retail, and outdoor spaces. It seems to be more than just a fad craft and many fine designers are sharing their secrets. Here is a collection of helpful lessons and tutorials to help you get started or brush up on your skills. Well established lettering aficionados like Louise Fili, Jessica Hische James Victore, and Marion Bantjes should not be forgotten—in fact, they deserve their own pages—so check them out too!
Handlettering takes practice and patience, it can be fun and frustrating. Below are a variety of lessons from old masters to young do-it-yourselfers. Happy Lettering!
Doyald Young (1926 -2011)
Even though Doyald Young did not finish the 10th grade he went on to teach at Art Center College of Design and was granted an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. He is best known for his admirable patience and attention to detail with each penciled letter and his vast collection of customized logotypes. A full length documentary featuring Doyald Young is available on Lynda.com.
Focusing on the use of a Brush Pen, Ste Bradbury Design has published some helpful and free tutorials on Youtube that cover the whole alphabet as well.
Hand Lettering Tutorial for Beginners | Uppercase Alphabet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMsh-…
Hand Lettering Tutorial for Beginners | Lowercase Alphabet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nTNj…
Global lettering sensation Martina Flor has been lecturing and sharing her lettering techniques on Skillshare.com. Her new book currently in the German language looks wonderful but is not yet available in English. Her work has been recognized by Typecon and Communication Arts Magazine.
I highly recommend subscribing to Martina’s Newsletter or her workshops and classes – the Tips are incredible! Below is a sample.
There are essentially five things you need to think about when you want to add visual magnificence to your letterforms. For this, I’d like you to think of your letters as dimensional objects. Trust me, this will make things easier for you—go ahead and picture your letters sitting in a room with you:
1. Volume: are your letters flat or do they have some thickness? How bulky are they? Adding volume can help you separate the letters from the background, and make them stand out.
2. Lighting: how’s the lighting in the room? Is the light coming from the top or the bottom? This will have an impact on the letters and it’s coloring. Also, it’ll have an impact on the next step.
3. Shadow: if there’s light hitting on your letters, there will be a shadow. This one is easy!
4. Facets: your letterforms might not be entirely flat, and they might have some sort of fascets on the surface. These fascets will likely be affected by the lighting too.
5. Texture: touch your letters, how do they feel? Are they soft or rough? Cold or hot? Now go find other objects in the real world that have those attributes and use them as models to add textures to your letterforms. You can even take pictures of surfaces and add them to your design!
Here’s is all of it put together
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