LETTERING + GRAPHIC
DESIGN LEARNING
I’ve got a quick tip for you this week when it comes to installing fonts in Procreate! Whether you downloaded a free otf, ttf or zip file of your font, I’ll take you through exactly what you need to do to access it and use it in Procreate…all in 5 minutes!
In my course, Learn Font Making, I take you through all the steps to prepare your lettering for font making, convert it into a working, professional font and I share my best tips for selling your font, too. I’m often asked by students is if I think the market is too saturated for new font makers. Although converting your lettering into a sellable font *is* a process, the fact the font making market is booming right now should not hold you back from starting; it should actually do the opposite. In this week’s video, I share my perspective about the saturation of the font market. I also share tips to stand apart from the crowd to get your fonts noticed by those buyers. Read on for it all!
Many of you likely know I teach a comprehensive course on creating and selling hand lettered fonts (check it out here!). The course reopens next week for the last time this year, so if you plan to get started, I thought some lettering supply recommendations were in order!
There are 2 ways you can create your initial lettering for converting into a font: digitally or analog. If you choose the digital route, I recommend using Procreate on an iPad with pressure sensitivity since there are amazing brush options for different looks. This post is all about the analog, though – as much as I love the iPad, there’s still something about lettering supplies on paper (not to mention the much lower price point!). Read on for my favorite lettering supplies for font making, analog-style 😉
If you love lettering – whether it’s on paper or an iPad, you’re probably familiar with how powerful your lettering becomes when it’s vectorized. Vectorization allows your lettering to be infinitely rescaled without losing quality. This means it can be put on anything, at any size and look as great as the day it was drawn. Since it’s a digital copy, it can exist for forever without fear of it being buried in past stacks of lettering experiments, too. It’s also a crucial step in creating open type fonts!
In this week’s video, I’m sharing my favorite, most reliable Illustrator trace settings when it comes to vectorizing lettering. These are the settings I use every time I vectorize to keep as much original quality as possible. Read on for it all!
It’s been awhile since I made a lettering tutorial, so a new one was in order! I’ve had a few requests on my tips for improving brush lettering, and I have 3 simple ones anyone can use to see instant results! Read on for the full video and those 3 simple tips to improve your brush lettering all written out 😉
A while back, I shared how to type along a path in Illustrator, but what if that path is circular or closed? How to you get the text to run perfectly along the outside or inside of the circle? And if you start on one side, how do you nudge it just slightly without ruining everything? These are some questions that evaded me longer than they should have when I was starting out. Circular text is important! It’s great for logos, icons, stickers and custom rubber stamps just to name a few. Read on to master circular text in Illustrator and never wonder again!
As designers today, we are extra gifted with the ability to make passive income from digital products. While ‘passive’ can be a bit misleading (because there is continual work to maintain and build on your product offering), to a large extent, it allows designers to experiment + create more without the continual pressure of seeking new freelance work. So what do I mean by passive income? Creating digital products (like templates, fonts, textures, etc.) once and selling them over and over again without additional work. Create it once, sell it forever. And with digital products, there are many options with where and how to sell that makes the entire process automated once the product is made.
In this week’s video, I’ll walk through those selling options and the how making passive income off of my fonts has changed my creative future.
My newest font, Skinny Jeans, just went live this week! I’ve been making a point to share process info for the fonts I make (here’s Espresso Roast), so that’s what this week is all about 🙂 Skinny Jeans is a font trio that includes the main script style, a caps style that pairs perfectly and a symbols font to add extra personality to layouts. The hand drawn + illustrated symbols also come as a vector file to make things quicker for those who work in Illustrator. This font is by far the most in depth of all I’ve created; it contains 30+ ligatures, alternates and extra features. In the video below, you’ll see what raw materials I used to initially hand letter the font, then the steps I took to make it a fully functioning font. Read on to see everything!
In my online course, Lettering Layouts, we talk about how to pair different styles of lettering and creates beautiful, impactful messages with them. Sometimes it can be tough just coming up with some different lettering ideas, though! To make things a little easier, this week I’m sharing 10 super easy hand lettering enhancements anyone can do. We’ll slowly increase in complexity as we go along, but you’ll see quickly how easy they are to apply. I’ve also included a free pdf of everything we covered below 😉 All you need is a pen and/or pencil and some paper, so let’s get lettering!
Ever dreamed of creating your own hand lettered font? Actually typing with *your* letterforms? I promise there are fewer better feelings when it comes to loving lettering than that 😉 But where do you even begin? How do you create those initial letters so you can convert them into a font? While the topic of how to prepare your lettering for font making is covered extensively in my course, Learn Font Making, I wanted to share a bit of my process in this week’s tutorial. In this video, we’ll talk about how to prepare lettering traditionally (writing utensil + paper) so you get all the characters you need for your font. If you’d prefer to prepare lettering on an iPad instead, that’s covered specifically inside the course. For now, read on for the traditional method!
Whether you’re creating font or lettering styles that go together as a family or creating beautiful layouts with clear hierarchy, pairing type is important. When two styles are too similar to each other, it can cause visual confusion at first glance: what part do you read first? What styles feel most harmonious with each other? What will make my layout look great and communicate well? With a few tips in mind, those decisions can be much easier to make. Read on for my 3 simple tips for pairing type!
Happy Thursday, friends! Earlier this week (on Tuesday, as fate would have it), my youtube channel hit 100,000 subscribers, so I wanted to make it extra special by celebrating with a free font!
I’ve been posting a new tutorial/video every single Tuesday for nearly three years now. Your support over that time – whether you are a new follower or have been along for the full ride, has meant more to me than I can possibly express. Each tutorial takes a minimum of 4-6 hours to complete. From concept, to figuring out the best possible process for it (*making it before teaching it* time), recording, editing, tagging, uploading, writing the accompanying blog post, creating images and announcing it on various social channels. It’s a labor of love I’m happy to continue each week because of all of you.
To celebrate properly, today I’m giving away my new font, Corner Bakery, which is all yours to pick up below 🙂
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