Sunday 21 February 2016

Hand lettering process

For as long as I can remember I've always loved drawing and painting letters. In a time where computer generated graphics and typography are most widely used I find it more satisfying to create my lettering by hand. Although I digitise my lettering at the end of the process, I like the fact the hand rendered result is more expressive and unexpected to anything I could produce from scratch on the computer.


I like to work as spontaneously as possible so I rarely use a pencil to outline the letters. I prefer the unpredictability of painting with ink straight onto paper. My favourite type of ink to use is Parker Quink and I have lots of different size / shaped brushes that I work with. 





After I've painted the letters in my sketchbook I normally scan them onto my computer and import them onto Adobe Illustrator so I can clean up the lines and add colour. Then I add the lettering to my product designs and packaging that I make for my etsy shop. This lovely bear badge packaging is a good example.



Recently I've been making lettering designs completely from hand in my sketchbook which has been refreshing as it's not something I have been confident enough to do in the past. What do you think?

2 comments:

  1. Your sketchbook looks absolutely beautiful! So colourful and inspiring, I'd love to see more :) x

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  2. Thanks so much Katie! 😘💖

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