Free Download: Lettering Principles

Improve your lettering skills with this free download on lettering principles made by Dan Forster (@danforster).

What is Lettering?

"Lettering" is an umbrella term that covers the art of drawing letters, instead of simply writing them. Each symbol in a phrase or quote is taken as its own unique illustration. Most times each letter has a distinctive role within the overall composition. Lettering words do not always translate into alphabets that can later be used in a typeface, since they are created with a specific word in mind.

The Master

Dan Forster is an award winning lettering artist and designer. His work ranges from custom brand marks to type design, packaging projects, book covers and anything that requires beautifully crafted bespoke lettering.

If you are a "tea aficionado" you might know the English brand "Twinnings"! You might even be able to recall their logo with sheer memory power. That isn't too hard since Dan made it memorable whilst keeping it deceptively simple. If you want to learn how to do just that, this is the Free Download for you!

The Principles

Dan touches on some basic principles in an intuitive and graphic manner. No huge paragraphs of text to go over! These basic lettering principles include:

Geometry vs. optics: Going over the different unexpected decisions a letter and logo designer has to consider, like making certain letters bigger than others to compensate for their over all density, for example.

Draw shapes, not outlines: Dan drives this point home. He even argues that the negative spaces should also be drawn to take their area into account as well.

Kerning: The spacing between two letters is of the upmost importance to make a harmonious looking logo. Math isn't always your friend when spacing letters, it's better to guide yourself with what looks best even if the spaces are mathematically uneven, since all alphabetical symbols are different and might need more or less space depending of their shape and overall density.

But let's not spoil all the fun! I will let you discover the rest of the principles for yourselves! Readers grow up so fast these days...

But the download is only an sneak peak from the full Domestika course on expressive lettering with swashes and flourishes by Dan Forster (@danforster).

If you liked what you saw, there is more of it here:

- Join our lettering courses
- Lettering tutorials for beginners