Lettering, Fonts and Illustrations

how I am learning to embrace the art of imperfection

Lettering is everywhere. Quite literally. It graces product packaging, art prints, greeting cards, apparel, books, recipes, magazines - the list goes on.

There is however, a huge difference between fancy or unique text and what is considered hand lettering. Text is precise and uniform while hand or illustrated lettering can be quite organic. Each letter a stand alone piece within the context of the word it is part of. As such, imperfection is part of the whole and that can take some getting used to!

A very personal and unique project

A few years ago, I wanted to gift my two grown up sons something unique, something that linked them to memories from their childhood. After putting on my thinking cap, I decided to illustrate a personalised A, B, C book for each of them. The themes were easy to choose; my eldest was obsessed with cars, trucks and trains whilst my youngest spent his time learning everything there was to know about animals.

I copied and scanned samples of their handwriting from when they were each around 4 years old and I created two unique alphabets. This meant that it would be their hand writing alongside my illustrations which was used to produce the keepsakes.

Once created a font can be typed over and over again with the stroke of a key. You may alter the size or the colour but the integrity of the letters will remain constant. That doesn’t mean you can’t be creative with computer based text though, as I have shown here:

Sample pages from James’ Book

Sample pages from Lewis’ Book

What is perfection anyway?

There is a perfect imperfection in hand lettering that I was not comfortable with for a long time. I loved the look and feel of hand lettered pieces but I fell short when I tried to create something myself. My inner perfectionist couldn’t cope and I would gradually stifle the freedom I was creating by trying to make my work too perfect.

Practice makes perfect, as they say, and I am learning to embrace the imperfection of the genre.

There are some hugely talented artists in the world producing some amazing hand lettered pieces of art, many of whom make a living from their work.

My humble beginnings

The image you see below was created as part of an online class. I used my adopted elephant, Bondeni, as my inspiration for a children’s picture book spread. You can see how the word “loudly” has been drawn to suggest noise and the word “called” is also larger than the rest of the text. I actually really enjoyed creating this piece.

Another example of hand lettering can be seen in the image below, I took my inspiration for the lettering of the board game title from seaweed. As the main character was a starfish, I felt that ocean inspired letters were appropriate and I feel it gives the piece an added element of fun and movement.

When you hand draw letters, each one is like a little piece of art in itself, helping to further the narrative of whatever it adorns.

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I am enjoying my hand lettering journey and look forward to using it more in my projects.

Have you tried hand lettering? How did you get on?

Please feel free to leave a comment below and join the conversation.

Until next time…

Gaynor xx

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