Lettering is a design technique that can add distinctive, personal touches to your logo design and stand out from competitors. Additionally, lettering can create an easily recognisable brand mark.
Lettering is a style of drawing which uses straight lines to form letters. While learning it may be straightforward, mastery takes practice and repetition.
Typefaces
Lettering designs often possess a more expressive flair than typefaces designed for print, and can be found everywhere from business letterheads and signage to comic book covers. Crafting such lettering requires an eye for handwriting’s distinctive shapes, curves, rhythm, baseline height, ascenders/descenders and ligatures as well as knowledge of which font styles work best when applied to specific purposes.
At the outset of creating a font design, sketch rough ideas for uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet. This step will help you develop the character’s proportions, style, legibility and legibility before proceeding further with refinement of each character. Once complete, begin refining and defining characters before testing your font at various sizes to see how it performs across applications – this way any necessary adjustments can be made as you see fit.
A good font should support multiple international languages and writing systems, including diacritics and accent characters, and meet technical specifications like proper kerning and hinting. Furthermore, it should be legible at both small sizes as well as larger ones.
Plumbago font offers a hand-drawn style with grunge or street art vibes, perfect for creating cute greeting cards, T-shirts and social media posts. Plus it comes equipped with plenty of alternate characters, glyphs and symbols so that you can design unique lettering combinations.
Flourishes
Flourishes are decorative strokes that can add elegance and beauty to any type of hand lettering. By practicing flourishing techniques in this class with Martina Johanna Janssen of lettering_by_mj, Martina will teach you all about flourishes as well as how you can incorporate them into your hand lettering style.
Flourishes can take many forms; these typically consist of basic curves and loops as well as more elaborate designs featuring thin and thick lines intersecting one another, intersecting every which way imaginable. Therefore, when designing your own designs it is wise to employ different flourishing styles; remembering that any flourish should compliment rather than detract from your lettering.
To create elegant flourishes, they should follow oval forms. This will ensure they remain elegant and consistent without looking choppy or chaotic. Also, starting with your word or layout and then adding flourishes gives a better sense of where to place them and balance them against other parts of the piece.
T-crossbars make an excellent place for flourishing as they provide plenty of room to add design elements. Other great spots are the bottoms of lowercase G or J letters; however embellishment on these should be avoided in order to maintain legibility. Furthermore, embellishments should only be added at either end rather than in between letters.
Ornaments
Personalized ornaments are an elegant way to commemorate life’s milestones, whether that’s your child’s first Christmas, an engagement announcement or the birth of a baby. Ornaments make great keepsakes that will last a lifetime – choosing an appropriate one will create something truly timeless that you will treasure year after year!
Decoupage letter ornaments are simple to make even for beginners. Start with wood or paper mache as the base and add decorative papers using Mod Podge; glitter can even add some shine! Making these ornaments with kids can also be fun.
Customize these ornaments to reflect any name or monogram that’s important to you – from dates, initials or messages to initials and dates! They’re made-to-order and delivered within three to five business days of your purchase; making it an excellent present for newly engaged or married couples, young families or anyone who appreciates unique ornaments! They make perfect holiday presents or additions to gift exchanges!
Celebrate those special people and moments in your life with custom-engraved ornaments from Hallmark + You. Whether it be to remember loved ones or mark milestones, our photo, text and name ornaments are sure to bring cheer and delight to their recipients.
Children (and kids-at-heart!) will delight in receiving personalized photo ornaments starring themselves and their smiling faces, while sports fans can pick out their team from our extensive selection of NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA ornaments. Pet owners can celebrate their beloved four-leggeds by choosing one of our customized ornaments featuring their names or paw prints; our personalized ornaments are all custom-crafted and hand engraved by Dunkirk Designs so no two ornaments will look exactly the same!
Materials
Custom lettering requires several materials. Each material offers unique benefits for different applications and needs; popular examples are vinyl, metal and brushed ACM. Vinyl decals are commonly found on door and window decals as well as signs; it can also easily be cut to size for use in high traffic areas or on curved surfaces like doors.
Dimensional letters or signage add depth and dimension to signs, often by taking on three dimensional forms that add three-dimensional depth. Made from materials like acrylic, wood, copper or brushed ACM; they can be painted to match a company’s brand colors and act as part of an comprehensive branding system – perfect for lobby spaces, offices or other interior spaces and amplifying its message to connect with employees and customers alike.
An easy online design tool makes it possible to quickly design custom vinyl lettering that is pre-spaced and pre-masked for rapid application. Once the design is completed, vinyl is computer cut and shipped directly to customers for application on any surface – after glue application, air bubbles should be popped using pin or needle as necessary; large bubbles should only be eliminated with extreme care or else they may damage lettering or cause it to peel off altogether.
Inspiration
Inspiration can be found everywhere when it comes to custom hand lettering designs. Find key words or phrases that will serve as the focus of your design and guide its style, composition and color choices – this approach makes creating cohesive looks easier while staying true to yourself and being natural and authentic.
Hand lettering inspiration can often be found in vintage signage and packaging from years past. A quick Google image search will produce plenty of examples so you can learn from how these styles communicated messages or brands back then – often featuring curved baselines and variable x-heights for a more relaxed style than standard typography.
Attract inspiration for hand lettering designs by looking around you: the natural world can provide endless sources of creative energy! Everything from leaves and trees, to clouds or waves are perfect examples. Think about ways you can incorporate elements like these into your design; for instance, like how this piece uses swirls and drip textures to convey movement in the air.
Hand lettering adds a unique decorative element to illustrations, adding flair and personalisation. An example is this piece of art featuring hand lettering of Dublin in heart-shaped form to tie everything together as one design element; alternatively you could try creating something more geometric like this example which uses intricate wisps connecting letters in order to highlight particular areas within text.