mitch
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2007
- Messages
- 2,636
i recently started a thread with a couple photos of a gun i engraved almost 20 years ago (http://www.engraverscafe.com/showthread.php?21921-Raised-sculpted-steel-inlays). my main intention was to show off the really cool steel inlays, but i was somewhat surprised to see how quickly the conversation focused on the lettering (see closeups below). it would be false modesty for me to claim i didn't think that bit of Old English was anything special- i was actually pretty proud of it, and it was interesting and gratifying to see the attention it received.
i've been thinking about that and thought it was high time we spent more time discussing, learning, teaching, drawing, & ultimately engraving lettering around here. there have been many threads about monograms*, the micro-script challenge, and some other tangential mentions, but threads dedicated to the solid fundamentals of good, basic lettering have been few and far between.
lettering is often the bread & butter of many in our trade (in fact, lately i've been doing quite a bit of it after a few decades of more decorative work and i'm loving it!). in my early years, like most i suppose, i just tried to copy various typestyles whenever necessary, figuring i'd been seeing & reading type for nearly my entire life- i can read, i can draw- how hard can it be to draw my own type, right? turns out there's more to it than that. who knew?
i picked up a few books on typography and started studying things like letter heights (they're NOT all the same!), line weights, spacing, balancing white space, kerning & leading, etc., and how those factors change and need adjusted with different styles & fonts. it's a fascinating artform- an entire world of its own. in retrospect, some of my early efforts should have been in crayon and hung on my parents' refrigerator.
anyway, i'll start by strongly recommending everyone get their hands on a good typography book (sorry, i don't remember the ones i used). any decent library probably has something that will serve the purpose and of course the internet will supply a thousand options.
that'll do for an intro. you have your homework assignment, class dismissed!
*to design good monograms, you MUST first have a sound background in the basic letter forms. if you've ever wondered why a monogram just doesn't seem 'to work', it's probably because you're running afoul of one or more rules of the basics.
i've been thinking about that and thought it was high time we spent more time discussing, learning, teaching, drawing, & ultimately engraving lettering around here. there have been many threads about monograms*, the micro-script challenge, and some other tangential mentions, but threads dedicated to the solid fundamentals of good, basic lettering have been few and far between.
lettering is often the bread & butter of many in our trade (in fact, lately i've been doing quite a bit of it after a few decades of more decorative work and i'm loving it!). in my early years, like most i suppose, i just tried to copy various typestyles whenever necessary, figuring i'd been seeing & reading type for nearly my entire life- i can read, i can draw- how hard can it be to draw my own type, right? turns out there's more to it than that. who knew?
i picked up a few books on typography and started studying things like letter heights (they're NOT all the same!), line weights, spacing, balancing white space, kerning & leading, etc., and how those factors change and need adjusted with different styles & fonts. it's a fascinating artform- an entire world of its own. in retrospect, some of my early efforts should have been in crayon and hung on my parents' refrigerator.
anyway, i'll start by strongly recommending everyone get their hands on a good typography book (sorry, i don't remember the ones i used). any decent library probably has something that will serve the purpose and of course the internet will supply a thousand options.
that'll do for an intro. you have your homework assignment, class dismissed!
*to design good monograms, you MUST first have a sound background in the basic letter forms. if you've ever wondered why a monogram just doesn't seem 'to work', it's probably because you're running afoul of one or more rules of the basics.