What is the art of Hand Lettering?
The art of hand lettering includes the use of letters and words to create art and provide an artistic touch to the same. This involves drawing the letters of the word on a paper and then embellishing those letters with any desirable material in order to make them look artistic. This art is completely different from calligraphy as the latter has a fixed set of rules to be followed while the former is completely based on an individual’s imagination and hence is a general abstract form. For the same word, unique combinations of artistic letters can be devised to form different styles. Adobe Illustrator is one of the leading choices to design hand-lettering gifts. This article is a guide to the art of hand lettering for beginners and presents the basic concepts of the same.
The Pre-Requisites
There are absolutely no hard and bound rules for hand lettering. Even the ones with poor or bad handwriting can also excel in this field. Hand lettering is an art form that is abstract and is not bound by the fixed rules of spacing and lining. It is completely based on one’s imagination to draw the different forms of letters in different styles to create amazing art.
The steps to begin with
Even though there is no such hard and bound rule for hand lettering, still the following is a basic layout of steps that when followed would produce one of the finest forms of artistic handwriting with the inclusion of the fun factor: –
- Thinking of an idea- The art of hand lettering begins with a basic idea upon which further steps are laid. One has to think of a word or the group of letters upon which he or she wants to work so that more of the focus can be given to the process of the art rather than spending time unnecessarily on each letter. This will be followed by planning of the layout like how much space to be allotted to each letter and how are these to be oriented so as to form the desirable layout.
- Designing of the letters- After thinking about the design completely, one can start the game of words on a trial-and-error basis to find out which style of letter suits the word better and the required spacing and thickness for the same. This is the longest part and hence requires a lot of patience.
- Adding embellishments- Next step is the addition of embellishments to the words so as to make the word stand out and provide it the basic purpose to deliver a message to the readers. This also includes adding small and fine distinction lines to make the message clear.
- Background Design- Although not a necessary step, just like icing over a cake, having an artistic background makes the art more appealing and speaks of the message that it wants to deliver even more clearly. This feature can also be derived from computers by accessing the archives of artistic and good-looking backgrounds.