Urban Lettering: From Drawing to Digital
A course by LetterMafiaCreative Collective
A course by LetterMafia, Creative Collective
Explore the basics of hand lettering and the possibilities of digital tools to create compositions inspired by your favorite places
If you're passionate about letters and want to make them the focus of your creativity, then you'd be a great fit for LetterMafia, a collective of designers with different backgrounds who all specialize in lettering, calligraphy, and typography.
In this online course, learn to emphasize the meaning behind words by playing with the personality of their letters alongside two members of LetterMafia, Caro Marando and Santi Friera. They teach you how to make hand-drawn letters and enhance them with digital tools, while exploring the relationship between this art form and the experience of travel. Ready for takeoff?
What will you learn in this online course?
17 lessons & 25 downloads
Greetings from postcards
8 minutes, 54 seconds
Mood board of your city
10 minutes, 24 seconds
Tools and materials
3 minutes, 45 seconds
Structure sketches
12 minutes, 6 seconds
The flat tip
10 minutes, 57 seconds
The contrast in the letters
6 minutes, 7 seconds
What's included in this course?
Caro Marando and Santi Friera start the course by telling you about themselves, their careers, their story, and why they decided to join the creative collective LetterMafia. They also share some of the influences that inspire them to draw letters.
Analyze a series of "greetings from..." postcards and how they capture the essence of their destination before doing your own research and making a mood board for the city of your choice. Then, sketch a few initial ideas using what you found in the previous step.
Learn the basic rules and characteristics of hand calligraphy and practice drawing letters with chisel tip instruments. After a set of exercises on contrast and angles, experiment with applying your own variations to the designs.
Next, discover a range of customization options to enrich your lettering compositions with personality and authenticity by exploring different styles, terminals, visual adjustments, and embellishments.
Now it's time to bring your work into the digital realm. Scan your inked composition and see how to vectorize the letters, as well as add volume, color, and decorative effects for an eye-catching final piece.
What is this course's project?
Create a postcard with a lettering composition that captures the personality of your favorite city or place.
Who is this online course for?
Anyone interested in exploring different tools and types of strokes to understand the logic of calligraphy and apply it to a lettering piece.
Requirements and materials
You don't need any previous knowledge of lettering or calligraphy, just basic notions of Adobe Illustrator to complete the final project.
As for materials, you need:
⦁ A pencil and a black marker ⦁ Brushes and ink ⦁ White paper and tracing paper ⦁ A computer with Adobe Illustrator
Reviews
- 1 year ago
amazing course
- 3 years ago
Muy interesante el curso. Proporciona muchos recursos y tips para fabricar nuestras propias herramientas. Siempre es enriquecedor regresar a las herramientas manuales y proyectar un toque RETRO al diseño. Me encanta. Superrecomendable. :)
- rainfallcinemaPLUS3 years ago
I keep telling myself that someday I will teach a lettering course in an indie art gallery, but I am thankful to Domestika for such great sources! Without this foundation I would not have any frame of reference to know about this technique. This has a ton of info from the influences section - you will never run of ideas with this in your toolkit.
In addition to working with letters, they've organized a variety of initiatives to foster learning and the exchange of knowledge: they held three workshops at the eighth Bienal de Tipografía Latinoamericana Tipos Latinos, participated in TRImarchi with an intensive lettering workshop, and hosted a comprehensive one called Letterbondi at Prints&Crafts. They also have their own podcast titled Familia Tipo.
Content
- U1
Introduction
- About Me
- Influences
- U2
Research and analysis
- Greetings from postcards
- Mood board of your city
- Tools and materials
- Structure sketches
- U3
Explore the lyrics
- The flat tip
- The contrast in the letters
- Variations
- U4
Design
- Final sketch
- Styles and finishes
- Optical adjustments
- Last details and inking
- U5
Digitization
- From paper to nodes
- Decorative effects
- Clipping masks
- How to apply the color to finish the piece
- FP
Final project
- Urban Lettering: From Drawing to Digital
What to expect from a Domestika course
Learn at your own pace
Enjoy learning from home without a set schedule and with an easy-to-follow method. You set your own pace.
Learn from the best professionals
Learn valuable methods and techniques explained by top experts in the creative sector.
Meet expert teachers
Each expert teaches what they do best, with clear guidelines, true passion, and professional insight in every lesson.
Certificates
PLUSIf you're a Plus member, get a custom certificate signed by your teacher for every course. Share it on your portfolio, social media, or wherever you like.
Get front-row seats
Videos of the highest quality, so you don't miss a single detail. With unlimited access, you can watch them as many times as you need to perfect your technique.
Share knowledge and ideas
Ask questions, request feedback, or offer solutions. Share your learning experience with other students in the community who are as passionate about creativity as you are.
Connect with a global creative community
The community is home to millions of people from around the world who are curious and passionate about exploring and expressing their creativity.
Watch professionally produced courses
Domestika curates its teacher roster and produces every course in-house to ensure a high-quality online learning experience.
FAQs
Lettering is the art of creatively drawing letters by hand, calligraphy is expressive writing using specific tools, and typography is the design of letter systems for digital or print use.
The course is aimed at people with basic knowledge of design or calligraphy, ideal for those who have already explored lettering and want to deepen manual and digital techniques.
You’ll learn to combine manual and digital techniques to create custom letters, design postcards, incorporate cultural references, and apply professional visual effects using tools like Adobe Illustrator.
You’ll need A4 paper, pencils, erasers, masking tape, metallic pens or Parallel Pen, water-soluble ink, access to Adobe Illustrator, and recycled materials to make alternative tools.
Yes, the course includes techniques to digitize, vectorize, and apply effects to your lettering sketches using Adobe Illustrator, streamlining your workflow and enhancing visual quality.
Yes, the skills you gain will help you create murals, branding pieces, advertising campaigns, and other graphic projects where letter design takes center stage.
Techniques with flat nibs are taught, along with stroke control exercises, angle variation, tool cleaning, and making homemade tools to experiment with different styles.