Hand lettering 101

Classic: The art of brush lettering

Brush lettering requires specific materials: A good brush pen is essential. With its soft, flexible brush tip, you can vary the width of your upward and downward strokes by changing the pressure of your pen as you write.
For the downstrokes, press firmly on the tip to make them wider – and don’t worry about pushing too hard because quality pens are designed for this! When you move your hand in an upward motion, using the minimum of pressure makes the line narrow again. Learning control and getting a feel for this will take practice. First of all, practise varying the pressure with straight lines and then move on to curves. When you feel confident enough, try putting together a complete word in your chosen font. Do you need some inspiration? Click here. 

Tip: Play around and experiment with different fonts and alter the shape of the letters until you’re happy with them.

Where faux is real: Faux calligraphy

Faux calligraphy (or “fake” calligraphy) means writing as though you were using a brush pen when in fact you are using a standard pen with a bullet nib. Fibre pens are suitable, as are fineliners, gel rollers or a pencil. This means you are free to choose what type of paper you want; it could be coloured card or tracing paper, it depends entirely on which pen you go for.

First, write out the word, leaving a little extra space between the letters. Next, draw the downstroke reinforcements that would normally appear when you put pressure on the brush pen – from the rounded peak of the letter down to the baseline. Ensure you always add the parallel line on the same side, either to the right or to the left in order to balance out the word. And because you left a bit of space between the letters, they won’t look squashed together. Finally, simply colour in the empty spaces created – and that’s all there is to it! If you want to learn the basics of calligraphy, click here.

Tip: First, make a preliminary pencil sketch of your faux calligraphy letters, so you can decorate the spaces in between them with dots, lines, etc.

So eye-catching: Bounce lettering

“Bounce lettering” is perfect for giving your letters a spring in their step. You are free to vary the height of the baseline your letters and words sit on – this will give your lettering a dynamic feel.

The bounce technique can be used for many styles of hand lettering and works particularly well with brush lettering and faux calligraphy. There are only a few things to watch out for here: make sure the ascenders and descenders of the letters don’t clash (“f” and “g”, for example). For a more balanced overall look, keep the first and last letters on the same level and only let the middle ones dance around. The layout of the phrase must be compact and the lettering must be consistent from left to right for easy reading. To achieve a contemporary look, use decorative elements to match the style of the wording and the font. It’s important to draw the letters clearly – a “c” with an extended downward stroke, for instance, won’t be legible, and an “a” could soon end up looking like a “q”.

Tip: Draw double letters so they look different from each other to add extra visual interest. You might find practising easier by drawing pencil guide lines first.