What are your favourite hand lettering/typography resources?
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Hi everyone! I've been trying out hand-lettering for book covers. I like how it's goin' so far, and feedback in general is good, but I'd love some resources to take it from "good, but amateur" to "professional"!
Google brings up lots of random resources, not many of them at all focussing on book covers. So what are your favourite design/typography tutorials/resources/courses etc for hand-lettering book covers?
Anything is appreciated
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I like dafonts.com for a lot of fonts.
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I am not sure about book covers, but I know that Lauren Hom does hand-lettering and is well-known in that area. She has classes on Skillshare. I think Jamie Zollars said that she has done hand-lettering on some of her book covers too. Jessica Hische also hand-letters book covers. I have never taken classes from them, but I follow their Instagram accounts and have done a little bit of hand-lettering from what I have seen others doing. There are a lot of hand-lettering artists on Instagram. I wonder if maybe some hand-lettering artists get asked by companies to do the book covers when art directors see that they are good at what they do.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kiminyrose/
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I sometimes use a grid builder to help with hand drawing text. I use these (in link) but you can probably find similar things for free.
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I like to check out Free Design Resources to see what new and interesting fonts are out there when I want to try something different for a project. Some of the script fonts there have a hand-drawn feel, so you could either use those as a starting point or just samples for reference. https://freedesignresources.net/category/free-fonts/script/
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Hi @Braden-Hallett, good topic. Sometimes, it’s best to look at some of the Pro’s. I really like how Dan Santat hand-lettered his entire book, Beekle. He also creates awesome hand-drawn titles for his books.
I’m interested in resources too from the group.
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This is my Bible for Hand Lettering:
Mary-Kate McDevitt is an excellent letterer and their Instagram is a great follow.
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@Kim-Rosenlof said in What are your favourite hand lettering/typography resources?:
I wonder if maybe some hand-lettering artists get asked by companies to do the book covers when art directors see that they are good at what they do.
You know, that woujld make sense!
@lizardillo said in What are your favourite hand lettering/typography resources?:
I sometimes use a grid builder to help with hand drawing text.
Neat! I'll have to check that out!
@jakecrowe said in What are your favourite hand lettering/typography resources?:
This is my Bible for Hand Lettering:
Oh cool! Maybe I'll just buy that!
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@Braden-Hallett I just look up fonts on Pinterest and copy them freehand... is this wrong?
Lisa Burvant
www.lisaburvant.com
Instagram & Twitter & SVS: @burvantill -
@burvantill said in What are your favourite hand lettering/typography resources?:
@Braden-Hallett I just look up fonts on Pinterest and copy them freehand... is this wrong?
and you should feel shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame though that's exactly what I may do, too
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@Braden-Hallett
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‘The Big Awesome Book of Hand & Chalk Lettering’ & learning a form of calligraphy. A more relaxed form of calligraphy I found useful is ‘The art of Brush Lettering’.
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I found a couple of neat resources!
There's a blog where someone did a 30 day challenge. My plan is to replace my morning line practice with this kind of thing
http://creativlei.com/2015/31days-to-loveyourlettering/
Also, lettering worksheets! Relive grade one!
https://www.tombowusa.com/tips-techniques-projects/lettering-worksheets.html
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@jakecrowe said in What are your favourite hand lettering/typography resources?:
This is my Bible for Hand Lettering:
Mary-Kate McDevitt is an excellent letterer and their Instagram is a great follow.
I checked out the book and I hear about 2/3 of it is worksheets. However, the author has some pocket guidebooks as digital downloads on her website! The pocket guidebook to lettering was great to start me on my way and I maaaaaaay buy the others
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@Braden-Hallett that’s true a large chunk of it is. I actually left my copy in my office which I unfortunately will never return to and has probably ended up in a bin labeled “creative department” that will never be seen again. I did find myself revisiting it regularly when I was in the office though! I’ll check out her downloads.
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Hi! I've been into calligraphy for a long time, and I get a lot of lettering ideas that way. You might check out this book: The Calligrapher's Bible. It's like a library of different calligraphy hands through history. I look through it for ideas when I want to change up shapes and proportions, or make a design that looks like a particular time period.
However, it sticks mainly to traditional lettering and is somewhat basic, so it won't have much to help you with really modern hands or "funkyness". It also doesn't have a lot of instruction if you want to learn calligraphy. But it's a good place to start if you're looking for a base alphabet design.
Calligraphy does a really good job teaching the STRUCTURE of letters and spacing and design--just like the basic shapes teach the structure of drawing. It's tough to learn a calligraphy hand really well, but if you learn one or two I really think that carries through all later lettering and design work. Seems to help develop a sense of how to toe the line between legibility and inventiveness.
Hope that helps!
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I picked the Ultimate Guide lettering since it is less expensive than other lettering books on the market. Furthermore, its lovely cover features a quality matte finish. When compared to other books, it delivers the same quality features and information at a lesser cost.
Furthermore, it has a wealth of valuable information, as well as ample practice sheets for each letter of the alphabet. Surprisingly, the author even describes the types of pens that will perform best and the fonts that will be used.
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The ABC's of hand lettering by Ivan Castro covers the basics of handlettering both structure and style. Is a beautiful book with some really great examples and step by step instruction. Also I had some of my hand painted signs featured in a new book all about
handletter that has just been published by a pal of mine. She is a professor at SU and the book is called "Drawn to Type, Lettering for Illustrators" by Marty Blake. Its filled with examples of illustrated lettering in all sorts of capacities as well as tips and tricks to think about when lettering.
