September 8, 2014

Here's the finished artwork. Happy to report the envelope made it safely to Matt ... from Orange County, CA to the Gold Coast, Australia! Check out Matt's post on Instagram.

August 17, 2014

I practiced Matt's first and last name in brush script using a Tombow Dual Brush Pen and Copic Sketch marker. 'Matt' will be drawn with a white chalk marker over the black starburst in the top left of the composition. I wrote 'Vergotis' beneath the leg of the 'R' in 'VERG' with a Tombow and experienced a bit of drag applying the marker over the texture of the chalk marker. Interesting, too, how the chalk marker seemed to absorb the black marker ink, which appears more like a dark gray than black. I may give it a second 'coat' to acheive a richer black. This envelope is just about ready to be stuffed with goods and shipped to Australia!

August 10, 2014

I knocked out the address today. Still need practice turning the marker to draw smoother curves. Here's another shot of the progress.

August 9, 2014

After a little more practice, I felt comfortable enough to start drawing the letterforms with the jumbo markers. The width of the letterforms were achieved with two adjacent strokes. I used the medium marker to fill in the small areas and corners of the letterforms and counters. Here are a few shots of the progress.

August 5, 2014

I decided to move forward with concept #2 because of its impact. I drew up another sketch larger in scale and successfully transferred the drawing to the envelope. Here are a few process shots showing the placement of the drawing, reverse trace with a soft 4B pencil, and transfer.

August 3, 2014

Spent some time this afternoon drawing up a few sketches. Here are a few ideas I'd like to explore further. The first sketch is of Matt's first name is script (which I will write with a brush pen) and last name in an "Ed Benguiat style" of interlocking letterforms. In the second sketch I decided to make "VERG" the primary focus in three dimensional letterforms for impact. I haven't decided which direction to take the project and am open to any suggestions!

July 26, 2014

I'm excited to finally start my Style Your Letters Boldly Skillshare project after watching the video lessons several times and patiently waiting for a shipment of supplies to arrive. I was immediately a fan of the Do Not Open lettering project when it launched, so I didn't hesitate to sign up when Erik offered up this class.

Being left-handed, I thought it would be neat to send my lettering project to fellow designer and lefty-letterer Matt Vergotis founder of VERG on the Gold Coast, Australia.

Practice Sheets and References

But first things first, I have a lot of practice ahead of me to get comfortable using the jumbo Pentel markers. Here are a few shots of my practice sheets. The references I selected are alphabets that can be drawn with a broad nib. I may not use these lettering styles in the final piece, but for now they are great for practicing.

"Display Italics" from Speedball Text Book 14th Edition (1941)

"Gothic Bold" 1889 type specimen from American Wood Type, Roy Rob Kelly.

Based on "Arbor (Village)" reverse contrast typeface by Chester Jenkins, 2010.