Logo, Font & Lettering Bible by Leslie Cabarga

Atkinson Sign Painting Up to Now It's a bear to get a copy though.

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...from the Fontry

Tracing paper, pencil, printout, blastoff.

:)

Well you are right there, but I don't want to trace anything... It's to make letters from scratch, not just redoing a font by hand. Of course I'm already drawing a way for a long time time now, I was just looking for some pointers to give me some directions, showing some possibilities.

@Phrostbite: It's a real shame these sign painting manuals are so darn expensive, cause they seem really nice. Why don't they reprint this stuff — I would buy it if it would come at a reasonable price!

cheerio Queneau

Nice list from The American Sign Museum. Those Speedball manuals are usually available on eBay although more recent editions are more common and cheaper. Most, if not all, of the plates from the Atkinson at the top of the list were still available recently in a book called "A Book Of Art Nouveau Alphabets And Ornamental Designs" which was published by Main Street Press. I think this might be what they are referring to as the 1980s & '90s editions. You should find that on Abe or Amazon.

Old lettering books do sometimes appear very cheaply on Abe. I think the professional second-hand dealers mark them down because they've got a few paint splashes or pencil drawings in them, but that actually adds to the charm.

I’m surprised nobody has digitized these into a cheap CD collection (or just a big download) like some European vendors have done with scarce specimen books.

Thanks a lot Justin, that's quite helpful. i found one of these Speedball manuals and ordered it. I'm really curious! And the signmuseum link was real nice too!

cheerio Queneau

"...but I don’t want to trace anything."
Understood. You may be best, nevertheless, starting on a path, as opposed to in an open field.

Cheers!

I would have to agree with David here. If you trace a couple different styles of type, your hand will start to become used to the 'movement' of the type. From there, you can do what I do and draw yourself a baseline, x and cap height on a piece of paper then draw that same type freehand. Even if your new drawings aren't perfect 'tracings' you're still teaching your brain and arm how type flows. You're essentially creating the Queneau Caslon or Queneau Bodoni or Queneau Fette Fraktur. Get it?

Hand lettering is not something you trace and draw. It is a function of the tool, either pen or brush, to make strokes which form the letters. It is technique, not mechanics. Drawing the letters is drawing, not lettering.

http://www.theletterheads.com/lhparts/lettering.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

...from the Fontry

Hand lettering is not something you trace and draw.

It can be. There are many techniques of lettering, including the "built up" method, which is basically drawing the outline of the letters and then filling them in. You will see this covered in most how-to books about lettering. The page on the Letterheads site describes the typical method of showcard lettering, in which production speed and efficiency is most important, and usually only a brush and a minimum number of strokes is used for the finished lettering.

I don't want to diverge too far from Queneau's request but Timothy Donaldson had some interesting things to say about writing versus lettering in his ATypI 2007 talk.

Interesting pointers guys! Thanks!

@David and Dave: You're probably right that it might still be good training to trace letters, so I will probably do this as well. Freehand lettering is more my 'thang' though. As to which methods I would likely use: as I said earlier it is not really calligraphy, but more like the "built up" method Mark described. In that sense it's closer to drawing than writing I presume. I don't know how people learnt this before, and this is what I'm interested in. I don't think I will start making fonts from my drawings any time soon, they are more one offs, and would lack the consitancy and characters to make it into one.

@Phrostbyte: Thanks for the link, that's great! You have a point about lettering, though I'm likely to combine the method you talk about (using a brush to form the letters) with the "built up" method. I'll be using it for more 'expressive' purposes, probably not for extended pieces of text (though I might use it for this in the future)

@Stephen: thanks for the link! I once attended a lecture by Wigger Bierma (from Werkplaats Typografie) and he also stressed this difference, with a certain disdain for lettering. He definately thought typography was a higher and nobler discipline than mere lettering. I don't share his views though :) I think they both have their using and can be used side by side. I won't give up the one for the other that for sure!

cheerio Queneau

Queneau

EDIT: to me the difference between calligraphy and lettering (as I practice it) is that the form that is laid down is not the "final word." I futz with it for hours on end!

This is a tough topic to tackle... there are many facets to "hand" lettering. You are seeing the schisms as people post. Different people consider lettering to be different things (I noticed that you eschewed calligraphy BUT you have to remember that is is an integral part of understanding the tools). Tools can include the pencil and tracing paper, as well as ruling pens, chisel edged pens, brushes, round pens, square pens, pointed pens etc. ad infinitum. Then you can get into the division of commercial lettering artists, sign painters, sho card artists etc. (once again). What was lettering in the twenties is not the lettering of today. Engrossing is not the same as lettering of the '50's and is not the same as today. What they did for movie posters is not the same as they did for titling on product... is not the same as they did for grocery store windows... so you can see that it is a DIVERSE field.

It is funny, as many of my lettering heroes reside in different camps. Some are calligraphers, others are sho card artists, sign painters, "lettering artists," and the list continues.

As far as books... the chronologies are the best, but they do not show step by step. It is material that is meant to be absorbed, possibly copied until you get your wings, and or are inspirational in nature. The 21 editions of the speedball books is a good place to start, AS WELL AS some of the other stellar recommendations.

I know this is disjointed and disheveled but it is better than if I delineated every thought I had on the subject. Talk about War and Peace : )

Lettering Today
The ABC books by Eric Lindegren
Calligraphy Today by Heather Child (lots of lettering in there)
Creative Stroke (1 & 2)

These are fairly contemporary... 60's on. See the other similar thread that is going on for some more selections.

Oh my goodness the list is endless and the books cover my walls in multiple rooms. So decide what facet you want to explore and let me know and I will send you a list!

Michael

One of the exercises I run myself through (and it's fun too) is to try to exaggerate the letterform in new and in interesting ways. While that aspect is fun the learning part comes in as you're doing it - take notice of what letter attributes characterise a form as one letter, and not another; or the similarities and differences between uppers and lowercases.

It's also a good exercise to loosen up the brain and get the gears spinning.

@Michael

Thanks for your very elaborate and helpful post! I realise that lettering is a difficult field to define, and I try not to narrow myself down to one thing now, but the thing I am most interested in at the moment is the construction of letters, less so the 'writing' of letters. (I hope you catch my drift) It's not that I want to exclude calligraphy from the equation, but this is not the direction I am most interested in. I would like to learn how to create/build letters by hand, which don't neccesarily look like handlettering. So it's more Paul Renner than Hermann Zapf :-)

To me letters are the kind of of base material to work with, like a set of shapes that can be combined and constructed (almost like Lego, perhaps also in 3D). So letters can be used to form words, but might as well be like concrete poetry, without semantic meaning attached...
It's sounds rather vague doesn't it??

It's hard to explain, as I don't really have an example of the kind of things I'd like to be doing. I hope it clarifies a little what I am looking for though...

cheerio Queneau

Queneau

You might look for Michael Harvey's books. I think they would be very instructive. The most suitable would be Creative Lettering, Drawing and Design. Taplinger
Michael

Great, I found a second hand copy of Harvey's book for a reasonable price! Thanks. Also just received an old Speedball manual on poster lettering I ordered, which is really nice as well!

cheerio Queneau

Believe it or not Queneau, Herr Zapf's letters are more drawn than they are calligraphic. In the formation of a letter he employs many small strokes to achieve the form. It is, in essence, a building process. Most assume that letters so elegant would be done in a fluid motion but they are not.

Michael

Yes, I learnt that as well from the talk by Timothy Donaldson that Stephen pointed out. It just comes to show that 'cheating' can be a work of genius ;-)

cheerio Queneau