Slinging Type: Design and Letter Your Own Poster

1. Introductory: Welcome to swinging type with me, Corey. Say, for whatever reason, illustration in hand, lettering has captivated me since I was a kid. My brother and I, we used to draw comic books all the time, and I couldn't wait to let her in the title. It wasn't until I graduated and have been in the film for more than eight years that I realized that lettering was much fashion. And I want to share this passion with you guys today. I'm gonna take you guys through designing and lettering your own poster. I'm gonna take you guys to the concept of the composition and sketch the final sketch. And then finally, I'm gonna take you guys through my tips and tricks for how to use it. I hope you guys enjoy 2. Concept: welcome back to slinging type with me for you say, discerning the project. You got to come up with a concept First, I recently completed a project for a women's conference title joined Journey. This brings me to your summit. You're gonna let her your own design based on your meaning of this phrase from a phrase, came from two verses from the Bible. Psalm 16 11 James 12 The's versus Talk about finding joy in all aspects of life good and bad. So I concept ing I needed to come up with visual that was gonna communicate both bad and good. Rose Bush was the perfect example for May. You have a bad through the door and have good through the roads. Now take a minute and think about what this phrase means to you. You could think about in the biblical context, or you can take it out for May. It also helps thinking about it in two ways. Do I want to illustrate this to the full meaning of the phrase or don't want to illustrate this to each words? Meaning so for me. When I did this, it made sense for me to illustrate each word to its meaning. So Joy took on a meeting and journey two gone The Rose Bush. But stylistically, it was a cohesive whole. And we'll talk about style in a minute. First, what I like to do is I like to look up in the dictionary, the words So let's take a minute and look up, Joy. Now let's look a journey, Okay, so after I'm done, hopefully I have kind of an idea where I'm wanting to go, But let's continue on and do what I like to do with wordless. I like that. This helps me think of other possibilities that maybe I'm not out of thought of in the first place. When you come up with the word list, you want to exhaust both lists. So you wanna think of everything you can for joy and think of everything you think you can for journey until you get to the point where you think that one of the words in one of those lists is gonna best represent each word when you're illustrating. So let's think of joy first. When I think joy I think happiness. I think home I think my family so wife, my dogs, I think colors, I think gold. I think bread and Rome for journey, I think Maps roads for maps, I think on a cool maps that astronomy space vacation. All right, so I've gotten to the point where I'm happy with where I want to go. What? You've exhausted your list, and you feel like you've reached the point where you've come up with a great idea. Now we get to come up with the style. So think of your idea. What makes sense for you to execute it in? If yours is all about travel, you may think about Art Deco. In that period, they did a lot of travel posters, and it was very ill. It illustrative. There's a lot of a lot of pull from, um, if you think maps, I that would be a good place to look in the history and see all the maps that were created back in the day with calligraphy, uh, black letter engravings. There's a lot of pull from that. So for me, when I was thinking about my idea, I was heavily influenced by the Victorian era in design. I wanted it to be beautiful, and I knew that that period, that was what that was all about. It was beautifying the product that was advertising, so I wanted to convey that. So think about your concept and think about what would make sense for your design. What? You kind of have an idea. Think about your concept now and think about what types of fonts would work best with your design. What top of type treatment, What type of pipe style would work best, And for me, I chose Sarah and script in that era of Victorian. They use a lot of that. Plus they use a lot of other fonts, and they will use a lot of different funds within a certain design. So I chose serif and script. Think about what you want to do now that you have a concept and you have a stylistic direction. You want to get pursuit and you have a clear choice in line with types of type you want to use. Now we could move on to the composition in sketch, see that 3. Composition and Sketch : Welcome back to slinging type with me, Corey say, In the concept portion of this class, we came over the concept and style for both the execution and now keeping all this in mind , we could start composing in this step. However, there are a few things that we have to consider. Poster size, scale, negative space and hard scale and RG are they kind of go hand in hand to do this. First, let's build a standard poster size of 18 inches by 24 inches. But when we're drawing, we're going to draw out a proportional size to a smaller size so that we can quickly drops . Um, thumbnails. And these boundaries that I have set here are three inches by four inches, and I'm able to get a four up on a page. So that way you can see all your sketches. Um, first, what I like to do right as I'm about to start sketching is I liked a lot. Draw Lou shape. The design will make on the page for my Moniz. Very rectangular shape. When you look at the holistic design, it's very rectangular in form. Um, it kind of fills up the space on the page, however, I like to keep pretty generous margins, but I'm gonna go ahead and demonstrate what I mean by leave shape. So here I roughly have a blue shape that I want joy and the journey to fit within. And I have kept in mind my margarine, Maher margins negative space here. Let's say I don't really like the rectangular shape. I really want the words to make, uh, some other shape. So maybe it's a oval. Or maybe I don't want it to be centered on the page. Maybe I wanted to live up here in the top left corner. So this is a really good first step without committing too much in your drawing to really kind of give you, give you an idea the size your design is going to be and where it's gonna live on the page I and choosing direct, angular shape. The other thing we need to consider is, but that I like to do before I get too heavily involved in sketching is I like to think of my words as shapes. So in this case, uh, when I think of words, I usually think of them in a rectangular shape, but these shapes can take on different forms. So, uh, to demonstrate also when you're drawing the shapes you want to keep in mind hierarchy? What shapes do you want to be bigger than that than others? So I want join journey to stand out. So joy is journey are gonna take on bigger shapes than in the But I also want joy to kind of I have an ark to the baseline. So this shape right here is gonna contain joy on this shape is gonna containing journey. And in between here, also, joy is gonna be three d in the is going to live in this space here. So if you could see I've tried toe keep in mind the space between the words and also the size that each word is gonna live within. Also, um, since mine is based on the verse, I'm going to contain the verse, name and the shape. Okay, So as you've explored the different routes that you kind of maybe you see your designed living within and you've drawn a shape for your joy journey. Now we can start the beginnings of sketching. I still like to go piece by piece without committing too heavily to a design. Um, because you don't want to get too far into your design as you've been sketching and not like it and then have to start over. So that's why I do it this way. So, first, before we get too involved in that sketching, just simply write your words within the shapes. What this does is this Still, this continues to allow you to see how your design is going to look again without committing too heavily to dry. Also, you want to keep in mind In the concept phase, we we picked the styles of type that we wanted to use what? Our design Because we wanted to make sure that we're keeping true to the style that we chose to designer type within. I chose the Victorian area, and I chose sit Sarah and script because both of those play heavily in that period and both really fit right with my concept. So you want to make sure that what you're drawing is still staying true to what you committed to in the concept face? Uh, so I've written this out, and I like what I see. I think that it? It's looking good. Okay, Now I can start really fleshing out these letter forms. And like I said before, you want to keep in mind your concept in the style that you've treated that you're treating your design is. So I chose the Victorian era. It's very ornate, and they embellish their letter forms a lot, so I have a lot of inspiration to pull from. So now I'm going to draw on top of these loose letter forms. So I've written it out again. I like how it's looking. I like how it's living. So now I can start drawing. Okay, I'm about the drama serif and in all styles of time, Sarah If San Serif Black letter script, they all use kala graphic principles and you're fixing things generally take place on the left or right based on the down stroke. So if you're ever wondering where to place your thick or where to place shirt, then think of the role of every place you do a down stroke on. When you're writing a letter like a, the down stroke happens to be on the right, so you're gonna put your thick on the right side if you're thin is gonna be on the left side for the V. Since you draw down first and then you come up, the thickness happens on the left for an in the thickness happens to be in the middle. I see a lot of people draw their fix and their fixed on the left and right side of the end , and it looks unbalanced. And if you're ever wondering why it looks some balance, it's probably cause you have your thick placed in the wrong spot. So down stroke equals thick. You're thins typically happen on the left, and I mean on the bottom in the top. Um, that's generally the rule, except for letters like a B. M. And so, with all that in mind now, I could start drawing my letters. Also, I want to incorporate illustrative elements to embellish my letter forms. So I chose the Victorian era. I pulled some inspiration. I'm not gonna rip the inspiration that I pulled off completely, but I still want to be true and authentic to that time period, and a lot of things that they do is they add a lot of illustrative embellishments to the serious and the interior of the letter forms. So I am going to do that here shortly. So as you could see, I'm kind of still staying pretty least moment with my sketch. After this video, I'm gonna take you guys through how to finalize your sketch and get it prepared for the computer. So you're still in a good spot to look at this. And as you start fleshing out your letter forms, if you want to your race you can at this time and feel pretty good about it without feeling like you've committed to heavily to your design and are worried about time. So also, this will guide that I drew here. It's kind of gonna help me see where I want to place my three d How want toe place my three . D and in three d you have a vanishing point. So you want to make sure that your your vanishing point is happening in the same spot with all the letter forms. I think joy is really taking shape pretty well in the I'm just going to keep that a simple Sarah again if you also another little quick little tip for where to place your picks and dense. If you're pulling from a certain type style like Sarah, look up type out of Sarah Fun A B, C, D E F G Do upper and lower case and look at where it really study the letter forms and see where they're placing their chicks in their thins. And that is another way of just kind of learning. I do that a lot, all right and journey. I want journey to be script because I also want it to be illustrated as a Rose Bush, and I really wanted to wind in and out the letter forms. So I'm going to do that when your drawings washes and filigree. A good thing that I like to do is I like to used transparent paper, and I'll just draw a different swatch. I'll put the transparent paper over by design, and I'll draw different swash over it. I'll draw a couple of difference washes until I get the desired effect, because, as anything you're designing have balance And just like your design needs that balance, so does your. So do your swash is in your filigree and all your elements. There's a required balance that's gonna help make your design look like a cohesive whole. And if something is off balance and might be because you're filigree is too heavy or your squashes or too heavy So I really, really think about that. Be cognizant of what you're doing. And one way to do that is to use transparent paper and explore, or the other thing I like to do. One sketching I really like to draw with a mechanical pencil. Or these drafting pencils are awesome because they come in various soft hardness is and, uh, various soft lead like if your letters really soft, it allows you to draw darker. If your lead is really hard, it allows you draw lighter. Um, I like to draw light first and then build on top of that. So that's another way of doing that without having to use paper. But I really love this pencil. It's it's awesome so that I'm gonna start adding my thorns. So, yeah, when you're drawing your swatches in your filigree, explore and experiment the best composition for your swatches. Is it going to make a shape explore that mine necessarily isn't going to make a shape? It's just gonna It's the fact that I'm trying to get is to make sure it just looks like a Rose Bush. So right now I'm adding thorns to my letter forms. Also, I'm not really gonna be focused too much with fix and Thins. Cause of Ayn typically is pretty much evenly weighted. So I'm gonna keep my my design of journey pretty evenly weighted with one way. And I needed incorporate a rose a couple places. Alright. As you could see, the sketch is starting to take shape. Start to take form. I'm really liking where this is going. Now we can start with the final sketch. I'm gonna continue to work on this or really get things flushed out. But and I would encourage you guys to do the same. So that way could be ready for the final sketch. I'll see you then 4. Final Sketch: Welcome back to slinging with me, Corey. Say All right. So, to recap, we have figured out the concept that style for the Zahn explore compositions and started sketching. Hopefully your sketches complete so we can talk it up for the final to move to the computer that you can see here. I've finished it all right to start grab a sheet of transplant paper and we're gonna overlay it on top of the sketch we're gonna trace on top of the sketch we've done so that we can, uh, your final sketch. But first, a look at your sketch and make notes on what you want to change for your final sketch looked through your sketch and see where you have major issues with it. Now I realize that this is a loose sketch. So what I've done is I've added notes, toe where I want to make sure that I make these changes on the final sketch. I wanna add Cem interior details to the letter forms within here. I want to make Indust smaller too. Really make the hierarchy of joy and journey really stand out. I also want to, um make sure that I fixed a cat fight here because it's looking pretty hawking here in the center and, uh, for journey. I've notated that I want to straighten the baseline for the lower case letters. And the other things I'm gonna do is I'm gonna really flesh out the swash is all right. You've looked at your sketch, you notated details you want to fix and that you want to make sure you transfer over to the paper. So let's start doing that. One thing to note is I find that the better you are in Adobe Illustrator or whatever program you use the loser you can be with the sketch for May. I can take this bad boy into the computer and probably go ahead, do what I want to. But that's just because I've had the practice and I know what I want to do. You know how I wanted the like. All right. The other thing you should do is you should really just look at making sure you're serifis are your angles. If you're doing black letter or not making sure the angle is consistent all the way throughout. If your script, if you're doing Sarah making sure you're serious or consistent all the way throughout. You get consistent, fix and thins. Really Be honest with yourself and make sure you see this stuff. Um, do you have your fix in the right place? Do you have your thins in the right place? Really? Look at all that Your script are your fixing your tents in the right place for mine? Mine is gonna be very even waited because it's I'm illustrating a vine, so don't have to necessarily worry about that too much, but really be aware of that, All right? I'm not gonna focused too heavily on this. Um, basically, get this Asada's you are able and feel comfortable with moving to the computer. If you really need to go super tight, those super tight. I used that. I leave this up to you, but if you're gonna talk it out, you really want to clean up your life and you may need to have to do. You may have to do this a couple of times for you. Get it to where you need Teoh. Also, one thing you can do we're working at a really small skill. You can scan this in, print it out and a bigger size if it's gonna be easier for you to work, Uh, at a larger size. When I originally did this, I did this at a bigger scale and it helps really give me that clear. I'd be on how big I want everything. So right now I'm adding the interior details. I really can't. I'm kind of a long getting you're here because I felt like it was two squatting. - What I'm gonna do here since I want to make this smaller, is I'm gonna draw my baseline. I mean, my cap. I hear I want to keep that. I'm just gonna draw another guide for my baseline. Now, the next thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna move the sheet down, so that's closer to journey. The number draw drama guides for during where have a straighter pace with E. I feel like this is moving along. This is getting a lot tighter. I'm gonna go ahead and finish this up. I would continue our encourage you guys toe finish up and continue on your final sketch. Remember? Get as times you want to move on to the next face, which is scanning it in and moving it into the computer. See you next 5. Pentool: Welcome back to slinging type with me, Corey say to recap Way have come up with concepts, landed on a composition and started sketching and then came up with her final sketch. This was my final sketch that you're seeing. And as you can tell, I've already scanned this in, and if you guys are done with your final sketch, I would scan it in at about 150 DP I You don't have to worry about 300 however, if your intention is to not use the pin tool, and you just wanted to really keep it rough and raw. I have that hand drawn nature that I would scan it in at 300 or higher so they all your details stay sharp whenever you get ready to print it. So let's go ahead and get started. This was the original final sketch when I originally did this project in this phase, what I would do is I would make sure that this is what I wanted to be. I've looked through to see everything is consistent to make sure that all the stairs are consistent, that all the fix and Athens air consistent they're in the right spot. Letter forms, structure and proportional weights are looking good, making sure that the balance is right. So I would encourage you guys to go through where you are and look over at once more. No, Like where I'm at. The first thing that I do before I even get started is I go ahead and set up my file with three layers. Put your your skin dinar. I would just make that as your back around. And then I'd make a layer that is on top of that called our and then I would put another layer on top of that called gods. Let's start with guides. So what I do is I go ahead and set my margin boundary. Um, one thing to know you can make any shape a guy. All you have to do is come in five. So I said, my guides for the cap, I at the baseline, the left and right. I think it so, as you can see, I've set a guide for the baseline. The cap I the baseline and then excite in the baseline. Okay, so once you have your guys said, now we can start Pindling, I'll go ahead and lock the guides Layer on walked are. Okay. So what you're seeing here? This is the final of join the journey. And, uh, but let me show you how I got here. Let me just move all this stuff over, okay? First things first. There's many ways to attack pin tooling, and one of them is following the letter. Just the outline of it, Um, or using an expanding strokes That, I would say works really well for script because you're able to use one lie. Typically throughout all the letter forms for serif, I typically uses a lot of rectangular shapes and then combined the other way. That's really pretty cool on. And I learned from skills here, Spencer Charles. He has an awesome technique. Where? Let me just German straight for you. He will draw a line. And I could tell you I've already used this and it works pretty awesome. Okay. Make that black into of not massaged the curves or anything like that. This is very rudimentary. All right? I'm not gonna spend the time toe clean that up. So what he does is he takes this line and then he paste on top, and that is command death. All right, so now you have two of the same line on two. Let's join the two ends, all right. No wala. It's a simple Is that to just create your letter for? That's one way to go about it. And ah, it's a pretty cool way. I still like to follow the outline and, ah, make shapes and then combine. Now, when you're doing a curve, you're when you're working with the swash. There are rules to follow, and the simplest role is to follow the rules of the serval. Now less is more when it comes to points and points along the path of of a curve. So let's look at the circle Circle is made up of four points, the furthest most point on the top. First, most point on the bottom for this was point on the left and the right. That's where you place the point. Always take this notion toe heart. So if you were going to pin tool journey, let me show you where the furthest most points are. Friends this point very top. It peaks here. The furthest most point on the right is right here the bottom there left there. Also, if you're gonna do I say that's half a moon, It takes three points to make up that rarely can you get away with only using two points. But I can tell that they used to points. It starts to get flat in a couple areas. Alright, so I've got my point here, there from there and sometimes your eyes complete trick of tricks on year. Um, it may actually be there. Where the for the smoke point iss? No, I think that's right. So when I'm doing a script or any letter form for that matter, I will just place the points where I know that they're going to be. And then I'll move the handlebars. That's what I call these bad boys. Ah, the busy acres where I need him. Um, but once you get the idea and you get a hang of where to place the points, the pin tools starts to become, ah, lot easier. A tool to use. I love the thing. I like trying to come up with the most beautiful curve. The board oiled young man. He's got some dangerous curves. Make sure that you're allowing yourself enough time to, um, craft this stuff. And don't just settle. Try to make it as good as you can. All right? So you can You could see how this is starting to take shape. So when your pin tolling a curve or a swash I was using the rule of the circle and it takes 33 points to two to make a curve, four points to make a circle on oval and always put a point on the furthest, most points. The other thing I like to do when pin tolling is I'm not afraid to step and repeat. So if I create a serif that I know is gonna be used in other letter forms, I copy that bad boy, and I put it on the other letter forms. And the other thing I would say is if you have an idea for had a tree, you're Sarah. That's not in your sketch. Don't be afraid to just do it. Um, either do it in the computer or you can redraw depending on how detailed your changes. But you can see what I've done here with this serif. Is that changed it a little bit then what was drawn. And that's kind of based on how that turned out. And you can see that I've changed straight a lot from the sketch. I got rid of the rays in the bag and added, The filigree swash is around the letter forms to further playoff. What I was doing with journey and the interior of Joy also added shading on the inside. And instead of just going with the full blended shadow Ah, use an engraving Would engraving texture, technique. Okay, so I have this Sarah. I would reuse it for the why, but coming. Is this because this is better? Okay, now for me? Sure. Yes, How I handled journey. So for journey before I got here, let me show you how I got there. So I just used the stroke. I built the letter forms and the other thing I did is I used the with tool and that's a handy thing to use for placing your fix and thins. It's not a tool that I like to live by, but it can come in handy for times when you need to do something really quick. So the with tool has its good things, but it's also got It's weird, uh, quirky things. So you can if you have one thickness you can do, click eight that along the path so that you make sure that you have the same with now the way that it works mathematically along the path. When you close off one into in a point, it starts that a little bit more thickness here in this case, since everything is gonna be mostly even waited throughout, you don't really have to worry about that. So what I did is I just since I knew that I wanted it to be even waited with tool seemed to be the easiest thing for Minis. So I mean half lest out the letter forms. And then I just taper the ends and what I did after that. The other thing that could be kind of annoying with the with Thule is it adds a ton of points whenever you expand the strike, which could be really stinking, annoying meaning and see that when I was messing with this added extra thickness all throughout the letter forms. So that's just one thing that you have toe work through when you're working with it. So once you get this to a point where you're happy with it. If you're doing something similar, I would expand it. Now. When I was adding these points, I just created the shape and then duplicated it around the letter form. So you can see how that, um, it's coming along. Now let me show you how I went about adding shading. So what I did here. I mean, once I got all the thorns all the way around the path, I selected this point, which is gonna select this line here and select this line to this point, which is fine for me. I'm gonna copy that line on top of it, which I just did command out. The thing about that does that put that within the same group. I don't want that. Here we are. And what I did here does it used the with tool to go to the width of the stroke, taper the ends? We have a debt. Someone, it the light toe look like it's hitting on a less sack. So that's how it did that. Let's make this Greenland. I typically in the beginning, work black and white And don't really worry about color until I'm done with the design. So then I just kind of did the same thing on the backside. And then I just went through and added some more detail. You just do that all the way around. Well, let me show you how Basil two guys were created with a stroke in the with tool for simple Sarah ifs like this. Let me show you. When I created this asserted, I crafted this. Sarah, this is my thin and duplicated it. Do you want a toe? So there's your thin There's your thing. Let's just say you wanted to create an H. There's your age. We want to create an end. There's your in. I mean, while you can. There's a little bit more that needs to happen to this. But, uh, you can see how creating one thing. You can use it over and over and over and over. How I created these is I used the blend tool. Let me delete that. So what I just did There was option command be that is the quick key for the blend specified steps. Preview now looks by, right. I like that. So that's how I created that in all the letter forms what I did to create this small curve and in this large one is it just copied a chunk. Ah, this curve in this curve so that when it blends that blends from big to small How I created the three D effect is also used the blend tool. I want to copy this, and I'm gonna place it over. But I want to put it behind. Now. I want to follow my guides. Let me just do this over here. Where my gods or at So I created a guide for my feet E I'm gonna dragon duplicate. What? Holding option click. I'm going to drag it to that guide. I want this to be smaller incessantly. Just made it smaller. I want to make sure these letters are up top. I'm gonna copy this so that I can place it over. But I'm gonna make this green. I'm gonna make this green. I'm gonna blend it. Uh, I'm gonna make a compound path of this so that it's all on one layer and for the bottom. Okay, well, in options. Okay and tow lesson. This. I'll probably do a blend of 500 steps. I would expand that, expand the appearance and then combine all of it so that it's not too much for the computer and it's going to take it a little bit. And I would just create a shape from here to here two and then, um, combined the shape to get rid of all those points there. You can either do it like this or you can. Now that you have your small in your large letter form, you know where it's gonna end. Now. You can just manually close off the shapes. So there's a couple ways to go about creating the three D and then to create the interior here. I used ah offset path with a negative so that it would come in cut into the letter form. Um, let me show you that I'm sure and sit downs with offset path. It's It's not perfect, but it gets me where I want it pretty quickly. It lessens the amount of steps that I have to dio. This gets a little weird, so I would just have to fix this to make sure it goes to a point lesson some of these points here, um, and you can tell that. Here have this shading going on in here. We'll show you. How did that? So let me and group this. I want to combine the in line. So I'm gonna command eight that ah copied and placed on top. And then us scaled it down like that and then put the original shapes on top, create a clipping path. And now you can go in and color the shapes. Here we go. So that's how are created the end line. All right. I shared with you a couple of my tricks and a couple of things that I tackled within this design. Specifically. Hopefully, all this will help you with your design. But what I want you guys to do is continue working on yours and make sure please post up your project so that I can see what you guys have come up with and maybe make some comments on the stuff. But I think that about wraps up this class. Thank you for your time. It's been a lot of fun. I hope you guys enjoyed it most of all that you learned something. Thank you again and see you next time.