Hi everyone,

I am very excited to be part of this lettering class. Thank you Scott to sharing your skills. I really like your work. I am a beginning letterer, and I've still a lot to learn.

For my project I want to work on a logo I was asked to make for a church project in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The name of this chuch project is #Hill. This is a church procject for young, well-educated people who doesn't feel at home in a regular church. They asked for a young and modern logo. The church is located in a old neighbourhood of Rotterdam which now comes to life due to new shops, coffee bars and start ups. A very attractive place.

I am thinking of a logo with a strong, modern and urban feeling. For my inspiration I first looked for lettering with a graffiti / street-art look:

#Hill - image 1 - student project

#Hill - image 2 - student project

#Hill - image 3 - student project

#Hill - image 4 - student project

When I was in Tilburg for my work I saw a logo of a bar called the 'Soul cafe', because I was driving, I wasn't able to take a picture, so I looked it up on the internet:

#Hill - image 5 - student project

Then I thought, maybe it is better to look for more brush script like lettering. Because readability is very important. So I think it is good to also explore this possibility. On the internet I found some examples:

#Hill - image 6 - student project

#Hill - image 7 - student project

#Hill - image 8 - student project

At last I found some examples in my own library:

#Hill - image 9 - student project

#Hill - image 10 - student project

#Hill - image 11 - student project

#Hill - image 12 - student project

#Hill - image 13 - student project

So now it is time to do the sketching......

First I sat down and wrote pages and pages, just like Scoot explains in his videos. I really like this method, it also trains the muscles in your arm, so the writing becomes better after some practise. I wrote the word #Hill or Hill, with pencil and some markers. In various styles and speeds.

#Hill - image 14 - student project

I chose these three options to work out, scanned them in and enlarged them:

#Hill - image 15 - student project

The first one, because I like the way it is written. It looks modern and a little rough to me.
The second because I want to explore the use of lowercase only.
The third because I like the way the H connects with the i. It only is written in a more classic way.

The only thing is the use of the #. I really don't like the use of this symbol in a custom lettered logo. I hope that I find a way to implement it in my drawing.

I didn't have tracing paper, so I used normal 80 grams copier paper and a lightbox. After some sketching and refining I came up with these 4 results.

#Hill - image 16 - student project

There are some issues with the angle of the hashtag in the first option and with the letter i and ll in the last two. I made two version of the last option, but I think connecting the H to the i and to the first l is a littlebit to much. What do you think?

The second option, with only lowercase, isn't strong enough in my opinion. At this moment I prefer the first option.

Update October 31st 2015

I think I like the first option the most, so I jumped into illustrator to vectorize this version. Scott your method of duplicating the artboard helped me a lot!

#Hill - image 17 - student project

After the fisrt vectorizing I made several adjusments, like the width of the H, the angle of the letters and the stroke underneath. The hashtag symbol is still bothering me! I made several versions of it, I still don't know if it is to my liking. At the end this is what illustrator looked like:

#Hill - image 18 - student project

For now this is the end result:

#Hill - image 19 - student project

#Hill - image 20 - student project

Finally some presentation pics of the logo:

#Hill - image 21 - student project

#Hill - image 22 - student project

#Hill - image 23 - student project

#Hill - image 24 - student project

Thanks Scott for your very inspirational class, I am looking forward for possible further classes. I really loved working on it, learned a lot and, as always, it inspired me to move on. Feedback on my project is always much appreciated!

Mark Veltkamp

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