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This Do-It-Yourself Lettering Book has been in my possession since the early 90′s. While I wouldn’t call myself a type-enthusiast, this book was pretty near and dear to my heart, since it really fostered my love for hand-lettering. I referenced it constantly for school projects and my own pre-teen doodling.
Anyone who attended school can relate. Downtime (or, you know, regular class time) was spent drawing in notebooks, on classroom boards, scribbling in notes to friends. I mean, how many times did I draw this “S”?
It was always the same: Start with 6 lines.
Draw the diagonal connecting lines.
Cap off the top and bottom.
Close the open ends, and viola!
And if you’re real fancy, you make it 3-dimensional.
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No notebook doodling would be complete without writing your own name a billion times. Classic styles included Bubble Lettering:
And Block Lettering:
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The Lettering Book is special in its simplicity. Outside of the instructional copy and a few grids, the entire book is hand-drawn. This is before “The Internets” and before affordable software programs like Adobe Illustrator. It covers all the basics:
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Your basic toolbox.
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Page layouts.
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Basic lettering treatments.
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Creative Lettering.
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Lettering themes for the entire alphabet.
But my fave part of the whole book is the section on Word Pictures. I probably spent the most time copying these examples and creating some of my own.
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And here it is – the ultimate page of the Lettering Book: word pictures of (mostly) junk food! Ahhhh….true love.
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Which really makes me want to Hand-Make a sandwich. Isn’t this book awesome?
Til next time,
