hand lettering Archives - Page 9 of 15

Crafts, Hand Lettering, Holiday, Tutorials

Create Quick and Easy Ombre Embossing

Happy December! Now that the holiday season is in full swing, I wanted to offer up a fun hand lettering technique for your (any time of the year) stationery, too! This ombre embossing effect is SO eye catching *and* I have a technique that avoids mixing your embossing powders together. Using this technique, you’re able to maximize the life of your powder purchases and create beautiful outcomes, too. Plus, look at the colors on black! I love the vibrancy and contrast embossing straight onto black produces. Swoon. Read on to see it all!

December 6, 2016

4 Comments

Desktop Wallpapers, Freebies

Freebie: December 2016 Desktop Wallpapers

Happy almost Thanksgiving! (here in the states, anyway 🙂 ) Since we’re hitting the end of November, it’s time for your free December 2016 desktop wallpapers! This month’s wallpaper pattern design was originally created with concentrated watercolors and a no.1 round brush on Canson 140# cold press watercolor paper. It was then scanned into the computer where final touches, recoloring and dates were added in Photoshop. The download includes the wallpapers in two common resoutions: 1280x1024px and 1920x1080px, with and without dates. I’ve left the year off of the ‘no-dates’ versions, so you can use it for any December in the future, too!

November 23, 2016

10 Comments

Fonts, Hand Lettering, Typography

The Making of the Espresso Roast Font Trio

Happy Thursday! This week was a big week as I finally completed and released the Espresso Roast font trio. As you can imagine, a trio of fonts that all work together and pair stylistically is not a quick accomplishment. This was my first time creating a font trio, so I wanted to post a little about my process to help any aspiring font makers out there 🙂 Here’s a peek inside, along with a font previewer, so you can play with Espresso Roast directly in the post!

November 17, 2016

59 Comments

Desktop Wallpapers, Freebies, Hand Lettering, Personal

Freebie: November 2016 Desktop Wallpapers

Today’s the last Thursday in October, so it’s time for your free November 2016 desktop wallpapers! This month’s wallpaper was hand lettered on an iPad Pro using an Apple pencil. Here are a few more details: the glitter texture is from the Procreate Metallic Texture Kit. The brushes used were a slightly modified (default) studio pen and brush pen in Procreate. This download includes the wallpapers in two common resolutions: 1280x1024px and 1920x1080px, with and without dates. I’ve left the year off of the ‘no-dates’ versions, so you can use it for any November in the future, too!

October 27, 2016

12 Comments

Freebies, Tutorials, Typography

A Colorful Crash Course in Type Anatomy

With the launch week of Brush Lettering with Watercolor coming to a close, I thought it would be fun to tie colorful letters into a quick tip design tutorial. And what better way to talk about type anatomy than getting colorful with it? 🙂 This is actually kind of perfect for hand letterers and graphic designers alike. For hand letterers, an intimate understanding of letterforms is essential, keeping qualities consistent for balanced, harmonious styles. For graphic designers, understanding style pairings and their character traits creates more strategic, thoughtful designs.

Over my (almost) 10 year career as a graphic designer, there’s definitely a short list of type characteristics that serve as an excellent base if you’re just starting. In this week’s video, I walk you through those base type anatomy qualities, with full descriptions throughout the video. Download the free cheat sheet below to reference later!

October 18, 2016

6 Comments

Color, Courses, Hand Lettering, Products, Resources

The 3 Best Watercolor Types for Brush Lettering

In Tuesday’s post when I introduced my newest course, Brush Lettering with Watercolor, I mentioned that when I started brush lettering with watercolor, it was the first time I had ever used watercolor. This is actually kind of awesome for two reasons:

#1 Since I had no idea what kind or brand of watercolor was best for lettering, I experimented with everything.
#2 If you want to brush letter with watercolor and you’ve never used watercolors before, I’m an example that is 100% ok!

Throughout all of my experimentation, I learned what the 3 best watercolor types are for brush lettering. These are watercolors that blend nicely together, are flexible for being creative and all behave in different ways compared to one another. Yay, options! Read on for examples, my favorite brands, plus links and reviews!

October 13, 2016

5 Comments

Color, Courses, Hand Lettering, Textures

New Class: Brush Lettering with Watercolor

Today is one of the biggest days to date on Every-Tuesday. Our very first long-form, self hosted course (only available on every-tuesday) is officially open today, titled Brush Lettering with Watercolor!

Two years ago, I decided to go all-in with my brush lettering. I tried (what felt like) every supply out there, watched demos, looked at inspiration, read books, you name it. My lettering was improving very slowly, and I experienced a lot of frustration. A lot of overwhelm. A lot of second guessing. It felt like I was doing everything right, but my outcomes just didn’t feel like they were quite there. I started implementing a few new techniques and that’s when things really took a turn for me. I remember the night it finally came together so well, like I had cracked a special code.

October 11, 2016

2 Comments

Hand Lettering, Illustrator, Tutorials, vector

Create a Hand Lettered Birthday Card in Illustrator

One of my favorite uses for the hand lettering I create is vectorizing it and using it digitally. When it’s digital, you don’t just have one copy anymore; you have unlimited copies. Unlimited copies leaves the door to digital and physical prints massively wide open. By taking a few simple steps, you can quickly digitize your lettering, clean it up in Illustrator and create a print ready file in a matter of minutes. Like I said, one of my favorite things 🙂 This week, I share my full process on how I do it by creating a hand lettered birthday card in Illustrator!

September 27, 2016

15 Comments

Crafts, Freebies, Hand Lettering, Resources, Typography

Brush Lettering with Watercolor Supply List

If you’re an Every-Tuesday subscriber, then you already received this brush lettering with watercolor supply list in your inboxes yesterday 🙂 It’s too useful of a resource not to share, so I wanted to also bring it into the blog this week. Having the right supplies can be a serious road block when you’re just getting started, and a costly one at that. After going through my fair share of supply testing (and cash), I’ve compiled a list of my absolute favorites. For those on a budget, or if you’re not sure if this is for you, I’ve also included a separate list of comparable, lower priced items 😉 My newest master course, Brush Lettering with Watercolor is now open if you’d like to put these supplies to use!

September 22, 2016

2 Comments

Crafts, Hand Lettering, Textures, Tutorials, Typography

Create Watercolor Lettering with DIY Embossing 3 Ways

I think it’s pretty fair to say that diy embossing is reallllly popular right now. It’s easy to see why; First, there’s watching colorful powder stick magically to invisible ink. Next, there’s witnessing it look completely different (especially metallics) once heat is applied. The results look like they came from a pro print shop! I haven’t come across many videos of a watercolor/embossing combo, so it was time for that to change 🙂 I recently started applying embossing designs to my watercolor lettering and it makes for some really tactile + impressive outcomes. This week I wanted to have some fun by sharing watercolor lettering with DIY embossing 3 ways. Everything used in the video listed with links below!

September 13, 2016

5 Comments

Illustrator, Tutorials, Typography

Create a Hipster Clothing Tag in Illustrator

I’ve somehow always been drawn to really beautiful design on smaller items. It might just be the cuteness factor, but serious planning goes into hierarchy and layout in such a small space, and that has always been really impressive to me. Do you ever check what the clothing tags look like when you’re shopping? I remember the first time I ever obsessed over a clothing tag. It was when I was in high school and at the mall with friends (I probably should have known a career in design was imminent at that moment). Anyway, I wasn’t in love with whatever article of clothing it was (see? I can’t even remember that part!) but I loved that tag, so I bought it anyway (in my defense, I’ll also note this was before cell phones with cameras). Roll your eyes if you must. 😉

If you love thoughtful graphic design on smaller things too, this tutorial’s for you! In this week’s video, we’ll create a hipster style clothing tag from scratch using just Adobe Illustrator. Get started below!

September 6, 2016

0 Comments

Freebies, Resources, Textures

Freebie: Mini Ink Splatter Textures

In many of the ventures I’ve taken into the depths of Instagram eye candy-land, adding some splatter to finished artwork is totally a thing. Here’s another thing though – splattering those babies is messy. Those little splatter dots actually go everywhere – I still have some on my keyboard from when I made this freebie 😁. If you’re taking your artwork digital, or editing things a little further, there’s a way to avoid those little keyboard/desk/everywhere ink freckles: pre-made splatters! This week’s freebie is a set of 3 varied mini ink splatter textures you can use at will. Grab them below, plus check out a few ideas + inspiration for using em!

September 1, 2016

11 Comments

Courses

Messy Watercolors in Procreate

Gouache Botanicals in Procreate

Learn Font Making

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