Different Styles & How To Achieve Your Own Look
You may think you know what your lettering style is or have one in mind as a goal, but in this lesson, I want you to put that aside because we're going to be discussing different styles of lettering. This isn't to say you shouldn't find your own style—I have a very signature look and you can see it all throughout my work. But while we're learning, exploring different styles is key to getting your creative juices flowing and learning balance. And who knows, you may even discover a new style and totally fall in love with it!
Let's dive in with the following video!
As I said in the video, if you’re just starting out and you don’t have a signature style yet, I strongly urge you to spend a lot of time here in this lesson. And even if you do have a style in mind, this lesson is going to stretch your creativity and open up a bunch of new ideas.
Faux Calligraphy
This style features push up and pull down like we learned in the last lesson but you add it in at the end. Write a word however you normally would write in cursive using just a pencil or pen. Then add the thicks in. Everytime you hit a downstroke, add a thicker line. The key here is to get your thicks consistent. You want to keep them the same width throughout. I recommend going small and adding more if you need to. You can do this with any writing utensil you have.
Brush Calligraphy
This is where you have to pay attention to your thicks and thins and make them consistent the first time around. You'll create the thick downstroke and thin upstroke using push down and pull up while you write your word. This looks similar to faux calligraphy, but depending on your brush, you can get different looks. For me, it's easier to get consistent thicks when using a brush pen as opposed to going back and adding it manually.
Mono-Weight Calligraphy
You can use any pen you have for this. Your thick downstrokes and thin upstrokes are actually none existent in this style. They are the same all the way across. I do a lot of lettering like this. It’s a lot of fun to mix with the other lettering styles.
“Fun”
This category includes essentially any type of lettering you see that you want to try and experiment with. Block letters are fun to practice with and will teach you more about how the letters are formed. This style usually tends to be not as perfect or precise. You can play around with it more.
In the video below, I'll show you how picking a single word and writing it in a bunch of different styles is a great way to stretch your creativity while also strengthening your hand.
Tips & Tricks:
- Experiment with different lettering types, different pens, different styles, and different sizes—as many different ways as you can.
- Find your own word and experiment with your own different lettering. If you just do what I do, you’re going to miss the creativity part of the exercise.
- The purpose of this drill is not to create perfection. Use this practice to exercise the muscles in your hand as well as your brain.
This drill is designed to work so many things: your muscles, your creativity, and your style. Spend some time in this lesson. Repeat the exercise with different words. The time you spend practicing is always time well spent. When you're ready, jump over to the next lesson for even more lettering fun.
ASSIGNMENT: Find your style while exploring ALL the styles. Combine different lettering types in this drill and have fun with it!