Grow Your Hand Lettering Skills: Pairing Letter Styles

1. Introduction: I welcome to this class. This course is part of a hand lettering Siri's that I'm gonna be doing to help improve your watering and to make you feel a lot more comfortable and confident in your letter skills, I'm gonna be going over how to combine different lettering styles to make different combinations in combining things, changing things like then letters with all caps, letters, calligraphy with whimsical script styles, all gold caps with then caps beneath it. The possibilities A Really. Unless I'm going to be going over a whole bunch of combination styles to help you guys figure out new lettering combinations to help you when it comes to projects that you might be working on doing hand letter before I'll also be providing you with a variety of fluttering worksheets that are prepared for you guys to help you practice all the different styles that we're gonna be going over in this course. So it's gonna have some tracing options on the left and some pre written letters to help you out with combining the combinations and then on the right, it will be completely free style for you, too. Practice your own hand lettering style and make a completely euro hand. Lettering is very popular nowadays, and manufacturers and art directors busy to be always on the lookout or new lettering styles and designs that have him muttering in them to put on products. And they're also very interested in finding artists that are able to do hand lettering and already have that skill. So this course, along with the other courses that I'm gonna be adding to this Siri's is really gonna help you grow your lettering portfolio and help your hand lettering, combination style and knowledge grow as well. So I really feel confident that this course and the rest of the series is really gonna get you Bring me to be with your hand letter in game from art industry world. So thank you for watching this video and let's get started. 2. Materials Overview: all right. So before we start the class, I'm just gonna go over the materials list with you, Bess. So you don't need much to start off with for this class, but the things you do need that would be a sketchbook or some paper for you to write on and practice your lettering next up with the artist pins recommends getting some different types of artist pence. So some brush pens, either thick or thin, some different size multi liner pens, Um, and maybe some picker pens with the chiseled edge to produce a more blocky lettering. So having different types of pen tips will allow you to experiment more with your lettering and see what kinds of fun stuff you could come up with. Then The last thing you'll be needing is the principal worksheets that I have made up in provided for you guys. There's four worksheets and you confined these in the resource is section of this course 3. Combining + Pairing Letter Styles: all right, so combining and pairing lettering styles One of the fun things about hand lettering is getting to play around with all sorts of different styles and getting to pair together different lettering, techniques and styles. So I've made up a side show for you. Guys should just show you some of what I believe to be popular lettering styles, the different combinations and ones that are personally favorites of mine as well. So up, first year, we have thin calligraphy paired with all caps. Um, I really like the look of this you'll find with lettering. Is some things that you can play around with is it could then or just do like this one bit and thin or thick and thick, Um said, playing around with, uh, thickness of the letters you can play around sizing, um, overlapping things. There's a lot of things you can play around with when you're doing lettering, but for this course, I'm just showing you, um, the basics of combining different lettering styles. So, as I said, this is then calligraphy on the top here and then all caps on the bottom, and I just want to show you an example of the thin calligraphy and all caps style. So this is an illustration that I've made, and you can see the thin style calligraphy on top and the all caps on the bottom. And to make it a little more unique for this particular project of mine, I ended up layering them so making sure they patched. So I have the top calligraphy letter lettering on top of the all caps on the bottom. So number two, we have bold caps up top and think calligraphy on the bottom. So I like playing around with bold lettering mixed with thin lettering because I think it really, in a way evens each other out. And it just makes force really neat lettering, styles of different thicknesses. So I really like how those look and then number three. Here we have a handwriting style up top and then a sorely script on the bottom. So combining distributor old handwriting mixed this. This really script could be really neat looking style. I personally like to use that for, um, like some birthday cards that I do and so different prints that I do. It all depends on the style that you're going for with whatever particularly project you're working on. Um, so this is another popular one, and this is some examples of my work using the handwriting and so early scripts style. So on the left, here we have my spread, your wings and fly art print that I did. So I just did my regular handwriting for the word spread your and then and And And Wings and Fly were written in a swirly script. And a tip for when you're combining different lettering styles is for words that are kind of just like not really interesting words and filler words I keep. The less I keep that as the less interesting lettering style. And for whatever is the main focus of my project or print, I have that Bt the lettering style that sticks out. So, for example, the spread your and and I kept is the handwriting style, because it's kind of just a simple lettering, and it doesn't really nothing really special catches your attention about it. But then I really wanted to make the word wings and fly pop out. So I made that this really script, and I played around with the sizing and made those two words much bigger, Um, and more prominent than the handwriting filler words on the right Here we have a, um, nautical print that I did that says ahoy there in my handwriting style in all caps for this one and sailor and swirly script. You know, before we have tall, blocky caps up top and a swirly script on the bottom. So one of the things that I want to point out is when you're doing swirly script your modern calligraphy, if you want it to have have some weight to the letters as opposed to just, um, thin or just all thick line um, a good trick to do this and I have shown it down here in purple at the bottom is every time you do a down stroke, when you're writing, you add weight by pressing down harder and apply more pressure on your pen. So every time, for instance, right here this t As I go up, you notice the Linus thinner. And then as I came down, I had pressed down more to give it more weight to the T. So if you're using a brush pen or brush a digital brush on the computer. It's a good way to do it. Or if you're using something like a multi liner pen that doesn't have a brush, Um, something you can do. And I do show this later in the course is you just let her out that whatever word, like I did birthday here, you just let her out birthday, for example, and then you would go back over it and basically retrace it. And for every down stroke you make, bring your pen a little bit away from the original letter and then meet up again when you start to go back up. And I explain this more later in the course. But I just want to show you guys that, um is that something else you could do to? And so just an example of tall blocking caps with so really script is this is an inspirational print that I did so for the Baki caps. I didn't really thick, blocky lettering and to make it, but I'm were interesting. I added some bashes along the outside edge of Butters, and I did the swirly script with the added weight for the bird matter. Number five, we have thin caps up cap and bold caps on the bottom. This is a really popular one that you'll see a lot of places. It's really simple. One to do, too. Um, it's It's just really visually appealing, and it's nice to look at, so I definitely recommend playing around with doing different combinations of this style. And number six. We have all caps up top in modern calligraphy on the bottom. These are some examples of mine using the all caps in the modern calligraphy combinations. So the left we have a merry Christmas card that I did, and on the right, we have a thank you part that I did and notice how what I'm doing is for the all Caps is basically the beginner words leading up to the main point of the print. Other cards. So the main point of left is it's a Christmas card. So I have Christmas in the pretty modern calligraphy lettering because it draws your eye to it, and on the right I have. I wanted it to stand out for how thankful I am, like on this card. So I have the thank you in all caps up top and then your eyes equally distributed down to the calligraphy of so much where it pops out that you were very grateful. Number seven old blocky letters up top and handwriting on the bottom number. Eights. We have thin caps on top and some brush calligraphy on the bottom. I really like this one. It's a really artsy type of lettering style, and you can really play around with it a lot. And number nine here we have bold caps up top in some fun lower case or for any matter, just any type of fun lettering on the bottom and by fund buttering. This is an example of what I mean is I take regular letters that you would right and you can see on the inside of the peas B and the D is I just added some kind of like a starburst type of image illustration. There, Mr. Keep It interesting. Um, it's just something else to look at, and it just draws your eye. And so feel free to play around with mixing up the styles of the lettering with mixing like swirls and handwriting with black letters. Just completely make it your own and have fun with it. Then just some other lettering style examples for how I've heard things together on the left. Here is a breeding card. I did, and I have. Let's see, I paired together three different styles here, so I did kind of a swirly waited calligraphy style. And then I did in all caps, um, kind of handwriting style, with some added weight as well, and then just a outlined, blocky type of lettering, and then notice that your attention goes to stronger. So when you're doing your lettering, whatever words are Whatever point you want to make with your artwork, use the type of lettering and the style of lettering that will make your words pop. Use it on the words that you want to pop. In the other words that are kind of just filler words that lead up to it. You can make them less prominent styles of lettering. So whether that be all caps, lower case, handwriting, you name it. And on the right here is an Easter flag that I did so I did in all caps, and I kind of did some fund designed in it there with Cem lines and the different colors and then just a simple, um, thin calligraphy script. Another. Some other examples here on the left is a mother's Day card and playing around with. I wanted the word grow to pop song Me that big and blocky, and I did some bashes around the edge, and I had made it seem kind of like it was popping out like it was three D. If you can see, I did some shadows behind it. And on the right here, um, I just wanted to show you some example of blocky lettering. So something else you could do is for letters that have spaces in them, like bees D's, A's Peas. You don't always have to show those spaces. For example, in this illustration, I didn't take out the areas in the B and the P to make the letters. I just kept it blocky, and it works so you can really make letters what you want when you're doing hand buttering , and you can really make it your own. So those are all my examples. And, um, those are just some of the main, uh, buttering combinations and styles in lettering pairings that you'll see out there. There so, so, so so many and this doesn't begin to cover them all. But this is just a good way to get you started. See what some of the big ones are and, um, probably up care of. What I'm going to be doing is walking you through the different worksheets. So how to make the different lettering combinations, the lettering styles? 4. Working Through Worksheet #1: So I made a few worksheets for you guys. Just, um, show you the most common hand lettering combinations that I personally like to use. And I made you about four worksheets just so you can practice and try it yourself. So I'll just show you what they look like here. So these are gonna be included in the resource of section on the class project page. You'll be able to print them out there 8.5 by 11. So what you'll see here is on the left side. I have a section where it's the whole left side is all tracing. So I put some examples of my lettering here for you guys. You can trace over it to practice it and then over on the right is it says your turn so you can practice it Freestyle in your own hand lettering style. So over here I'm just going to go through. We have all caps and modern calligraphy, then caps and brush calligraphy. Bold, blocky and handwriting, bold caps and thin calligraphy thin caps in bold caps. Ta blocky caps and swirl script. Bold caps in fund, lower case hand writing and so really script and thin calligraphy in all caps. And then I have a sheet for you guys where there's nothing written. So you can just use these as guides if you'd like to practice that way. So I'm just gonna go over here and I'm gonna walk you guys through just the worksheets to help you guys out. These are my working tools. So I have a little bag. Good. Thank you. I have a little bag and it's I don't know if you can hear that. It's full of pens and pencils and just tools to write with half way too many drawing tens. But that's all right. I just Every time I go to an art store, I always get a drawing pen. Never know what you'll need. So using my tools and I really encourage you to get some different, uh, sized pens, pencils, whatever you like to work with other even brushes. Just so you have some different are wits and, like types of writing tips you can work with. So, for instance, I have, ah, thick brush pin here to Sharpie that I'll work with Sometimes If I want declines, I have ah, dinner brush tip. Then I have just a regular Penn there. And then I have my favorite crop IQ artist. Multi liner pen of another kind of brush. Tip one. Another cop IQ. This one's a sketch. So lose two different sizes. Uh, in types of tips on either side. I love these. These are great. I have my pencil, but that's usually just for sketching. So I'm not gonna be using this when we're doing the worksheets here. And then I have my micron, so I'm just gonna walk you guys through. So the 1st 1 of the common combinations that I do and that you will also see out in the world is all capital letters combined with modern calligraphy. So I'm going, Teoh, take one of my smaller brush pens here, and this is what you guys do. You can just trace over what I already did. Just so you can get a feel of the lettering combination that I'm gonna have you guys do so you can just usually trace over it, and then I'm going to use my actually, I used the same pen for that, so I'm just gonna go down and again, just tracing over the light colored lettering that's already there. And as you do this as your tracing, um, I created this for you guys also, because it just gives you a good feel of what it feels like to write the letters in that way. So it's even if you're already good at lettering. Um, it doesn't hurt. Just toe. Try it out so you can see what it feels like to write different letter styles. All right, so we have all caps in modern calligraphy done. So I want to invite you guys. What you could do is after you trace it, just go over to where it says all caps in modern calligraphy, your turn, and practice your own style of writing. So whether that be, um, writing happy in all caps in a much quicker pace than what I was working or if you I really want to see what you could do. If you start writing backwards with y first, then the PP a age. If you want to start the letters, um, either starting from the bottom up or searching up going from the top down, seeing how your letters look when you start them in different ways and what's different from how you usually write with your own handwriting. So experiment with that. That's always fun to see what you come up with. So then now we're going down to thin caps and brush calligraphy. This is another popular one. Lettering, combinations. They look really good when you have been 11 word is thin, and then another word is kind of bold and more thick. So this one is. Then caps appear for happy and below it is a brush calligraphy. So I'm just gonna use a a thin ka pik multi liner pen to do this. I'm just going to trace that. Just go over when I already wrote. So you have a thin happy there and then for the brush calligraphy for the birthday. I'm gonna be using Micah pick brush sketch marker here. She's just gonna go over that and the brush pens a really fun to work with, because you never know what you're gonna get like the really thick brushes here. You can see that, um, because it is thick. It's not as easy to control, but it's kind of fun working with that type of medium to see what kind of textures you get and how your letters end up. So that's combining, then caps and brush calligraphy, then the last thing on this work she is Bolden blocky. It's not caps of just regular writing beneath that would be handwriting. So see, for that, I'm going to use Micah pick again, but I'm gonna be using the other side of it, so it's kind of a more chisel side. All right, so we have and then handwriting. Who's gonna choose this big pen? Because this is just like something I would usually used to write with. So it's easy for me, toe. Just do handwriting. Okay, so So when you do your lettering work shoots, this is what they should look like after you get yours done. So you're gonna have whatever colored marker pen and whatever you'd like to use on side here, and then you can try out freestyle over here on the right 5. Working Through Worksheet #2: so under worksheet number two. First up, we have bold caps in fun lower case. So from bold caps, I'm gonna be using my ka pik marker here. Uh, probably do the chiseled end here. Just be true. Sing over this notice how making it really bold. And let's see, for the fun lower case I'm going to be using on my smaller brush pens and something to do with lettering, Which is what I'm hoping that, um what I'm hoping that this little practice area will help you do is you want Teoh play around with making it kind of fun in your own. So instead of just having, like, just plain letters, like just handwriting words or just blocky, try to think outside of the box in, for instance, this is just a start to it. But I'm doing regular letters and then doing outlines of the letters, so combining different styles, even within one word and then I'm sure you guys on the right, you could make it even more unique. Okay, so there's that. So over here on the right, what I'm gonna dio is for happy gonna do a black age and then to add more of a unique and fun feel to it. I'm just gonna dio I could drop in a dot pattern within it just to add more to look at in my Butters. You can see already that it it makes it more interesting. So going to try this, then you're a pinwheel type thing here in this P. Then I'm gonna make this p Milwaukee for P. I'm gonna do some lines like a candy cane. Just threw it so you can see that it's playing with the letters and going beyond just having range in your letters. So always feel Frito, play around with the letters and see what you can do with them. Um, so that's always fun thing to do. It's going back down here, over to the left. Next up, we have handwriting and swirly script. So for handwriting, I'm just going to use my brush. Panto have a little bit of a thick line since I'm gonna have the so really script be thin. So when you're lettering, always try to see if you can combined different textures of brushes. So a thin line, then lined multi liner brought a pen with a brush pen or just doing thin text and then really bold text. Or if you want to just keep it all sick or often do all thin caps or do do often capsule and you could do thin calligraphy, the possibilities air really, really endless. So while there are three worksheets and there's nine different combinations I did for you guys, there's a whole bunch more that I'm sure you guys can come up with that you can look out in the art world. If you go to stores, go to greet and look at greeting cards. You can see that there's a whole bunch of different combination options out there, and so it's really neat to see how many different ideas you could come up with. So I really encourage you guys. So after you use these worksheets toe, just play around and maybe write down a list and challenge yourself to come up with, like, say, town or 15 mawr, different buttering combinations that I didn't list in this course when you can see that that's the handwriting and the swirly script. I personally really loved writing swirly script a lot. It adds a very fun and happy feel to things. So that's a good script for writing on celebration. Um, artwork or especially Happy birthday. Okay, next up, we have been calligraphy up top and all caps on the bottom. So that's doing a search up from what we had on this work worksheet, which is all cops up top and modern calligraphy on the bottom, variances in calligraphy, just going to write out the happy happy and then I think I'm gonna keep This is one of those instances where I'm going to keep both words then just to show you guys have that looks. But it is a different lettering style. So I'm just gonna go through and do the birthday so you guys can see and always remember that the lettering in lettering that you do it doesn't have to be perfect. That's one of the great things about hand lettering is that's different from farms is that it has its own kind of quirky, unique, um, hand drawn feel. So it's OK for it to be a little wonky. Okay, And then there you have both in. So now what you guys want to do is go over to the right side here of your worksheet and practice. Um, first tracing and then practice your turn. Doing it in your own hand, writing on your own style on the right and see what you guys can come up with. 6. Working Through Worksheet #3: now on to 1/3 worksheet. First up, we have bold caps in thin calligraphy. So for bold caps, I'm gonna take my cop IQ sketch marker here and I don't want it super blocky, like I did one of the exercises till the last video. So I'm kind of using the edge of the chisel marker here. You know that then Then calligraphy down on bottom. So our next combination we have thin caps and bold caps. This is personally one of my favorite combinations. I really like how the thin letters sit on top of the taken bold letters, especially when they're in the all caps form. Because I just No, I just think it goes together really nicely. That and then I'm going to use the topic again for the bold below that we have tall, blocky caps and so really script. So this blocking caps is a little more condensed on what we have been doing. And then for the script down here, Good I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do this, you know, a calligraphy type of way. So this one, what I'm going to do first is I'm just gonna outline and go over the birthday buttering that has already written there. So I'm gonna get my base down for the lettering. And then what I'm going to do when I finish is I'm going to go back over it, and I'm going to add weight to the lines of the text to make it in a calligraphy type of lettering. So I have that I have my base of the lettering. So what, I'm gonna go back over and do is every time my pan my stroke goes in a downward motion, I'm going, Teoh, bring my pen out and add some weight. So I'm just retracing what I'm doing. And as I'm going down, I go away from the main line on some weight and a reconnect at the bottom because what I'm doing is let me just do this. Be first, is adding weight Wait we're doing is after I add that Wait, I go back in my color it in, shaded in to add some weight to the letters so you can see there. So I'm just gonna go through and do that for the rest of the rest of the word birthday here . And it is easier obviously to do this with a brush style pin, because that way you can just do it in one go. You don't have toe like right out the word and then go back and retrace it again. But sometimes I just really like the kind of the quirky look that you get from doing it this race out. I'll still do it this way. I switch up between doing it with the brush pen and the just a regular multi liner pen. Remember, as you're doing it as you're growing up, it's a thin line, and as you come down, it's that thick line that you wanna go away from the, um, butter that you have there to add that extra weight, and it might take you a few times to get the hang of it. And that's fine. That's what these work shoots Air Force. So feel free to print them as many times as you need to. That way you can practice and get it nailed down. Okay, so there I have it all in a little calligraphy style, so now you guys can get your worksheet ready. You can go over and trace the left side, and then you can go over to the right side and play around with making it your own 7. Stacking Different Letter Styles: So in this segment, I'm gonna be going over how to combine in stack different light letter styles for any projects that you're doing. So we've already gone over how to combine different lettering styles with one on top and one on the bottom. And in this one, what we're gonna do is say that you have, let's say, a card that you're designing with a long verse or if you're doing illustration with a long quote, whatever it may be this this segment is devoted to so you can see how we can stack up different layer styles to letter styles together. So let's see, Let's start off with Let's do all caps up top Do all caps in modern calligraphy switch between them. So just so you guys can see just what they look like in the differences, I can help you guys visualize things a bit better. So what do we want to combine? Let's do. I'm going to stick with the birthday theme just because birthdays are very popular. So let's do I'm just gonna write, wishing you a happy birthday. So I have wishing you in all caps on the top, and then I'm gonna do a modern calligraphy type of script, Um, wishing you a happy birthday. So, actually, I'm gonna do a John here on its own, a little level there, and then I'm gonna do the happy birthday in the script. - So that's combining all caps with calligraphy down there. And what you can also do is if you want to play around with, like, combining several different styles stacked on top of each other. You can always do that, cause lettering is there's no rules to it. You can make it completely how you want, which is pretty awesome. That's what I love about the art world is You can do what you want with it, which is just fantastic, and you can really make it your own. So I really encourage you to go through the worksheets, see the styles that you like and can just stocking up, see how they look together. So if I'm just doing just a thin stop here, So I'm just going to write love from top of itself, just a see what different styles go together. So I have a brush calligraphy style here. I'm gonna take my thinner brush, do some all caps on, Really, then over here. So, as you can see, combining different lettering styles on top of each other is, I think, pretty much either way you do it. It's gonna look really neat because either way you do watering. It always looks good because it's your work. It's your lettering. So as long as it's illegible, just experiment all you want with combining different styles, and it's gonna your what you're gonna be lettering, the styles that you're going to be doing well, change based on the project that you're working on. So, for instance, like I was talking about birthday lettering, it's fun to keep that like, unique and fun, happy style of letters where you can experiment with blocky text and maybe like changing the A in the happy part of the birthday into like a party hat with confetti coming out on top of it or something. Or it's just the possibilities of so so atlas. So just get out of sketchbook, get out a lot of paper and just go crazy with practicing, combining different butters and stacking them on top of each other and seeing what you could get and you can have them lined up perfectly. You can have them. My down here, the love it doesn't line up perfectly. It goes out, It's really up to you. So I really just encourage you to play around with it. Um, stack many different lettering styles as you can try and see what you guys can come up with . And another fun thing that I think you guys could dio is Let's see. So what we're gonna dio just to show you guys, What I'm thinking is, if you go through and you cut up Theo tracing part of the worksheet after you let her on it , I'll just do it with a few here, just you can see what I'm talking about. So canvass here. So, yes, it just cut up some of the ones that are under tracing that you already traced on. Or even if you want to cut up the ones that, um, you did yourself so you could do your own lettering style. And where you can dio is take them and credit. Just stack them on each other so they could be interchangeable. So you can go through and pick what style you like best together. So let's say we're gonna have a really thin, happy up top and I'm gonna keep actually, I'm gonna dio calligraphy script star Birthday beneath it. Then I'm going Teoh, I think lettering And then I have the, um too bold pieces of lettering hearing the center just toe have your attention be drawn to the center and I'm gonna have a thin script beneath that and then finish off with all thin condensed caps. So if you want to just go through your work sheets, you can come up, do what you want with, um, you don't have to, But it's just kind of like a fun puzzle, if you will, of piecing together and seeing what you can, what different combinations you can make. And if you want, you can always I turn him over on the back and just right before you cut them up like tall , blocky caps. Um, for this one and on the back of this right swirly script, just do you remember what they are? Um, just go through kind of like a puzzle for a little card game and just switch him up and see what style of lettering looks good wear. You could switch him up much as you want. And then that way you can. It'll help you visualize what different styles you can get. And yes, so you could do this for hours. The possibilities are endless. So have fun with it and feel free to share in the discussions. What you come up with or if you want. You can also add a photo of this to your project, upload and share with everybody what you come up with. 8. Conclusion: All right. Well, I just want to say thank you guys for watching this course and taking the class. I really hope you learned a lot from it. And I really hope it's helping your lettering skills to grow. And you feel more confident when it comes to combining different letter forms of hand lettering? Um, a questions you have feel free to post it in the discussion section in the class and please post your work in your progress and anything else you'd like to post into projects. Suction. So we all can see you can all share all our progress with each other. And yeah, so thank you so much for taking this course and keep your eye on the the next few classes in this fluttering Siri's would be coming up soon. So you keep your eye out for that, and I'm see you in my next class. Good luck.