Illustrated Lettering: Creativity and Expression

Alex Trochut is one of the world's best-known and most recognized figures in the art of typography, having worked for clients such as Apple, Nike, and Coca-Cola.

Lettering is Alex's expertise, and in this online course, he teaches you how to create expressive letters and bring them to life by exploring different artistic styles. Discover the potential of words as a visual medium and explore the limits of language, blending text and image into a unique form of illustrated expression.

Begin by getting to know Alex and his creative journey through the world of typography, along with his heroes and biggest influences. He also gives you an overview of the course and what it entails.

Continue with a brief introduction to script lettering, its history, and some key concepts. Then, choose the word you want to work with throughout the course.

Once you've decided, dive into the first illustration style: inking. Look at a variety of examples to get some ideas and create a sketch in pencil. Then vectorizing your design in Illustrator before adding light and volume using blending modes.

Move on to the next style and experiment with op-art illustration, an artistic trend that revolves around creating optical effects to give the illusion of movement.

Finally, Alex shows you the ribbon illustration style, his personal favorite which, as the name suggests, is inspired by the waving movement of a ribbon. Look at some examples before digitizing your own strokes and enhancing them in Illustrator.

To wrap up, Alex teaches how to give your letters another dimension in Cinema 4D. Through a series of exercises, learn how to model 3D letters and render your composition using OctaneRender before doing some fine-tuning in Adobe Photoshop to export your project.

Create an expressive lettering composition to apply to a poster, album cover, or the support of your choice.

Anyone who wants to express themselves and have a good time designing letters.

Basic notions of Adobe Illustrator required to take this course.

As for materials, you need a pencil, paper, markers and brushes, as well as a computer with Illustrator and, optionally, Cinema 4D.