I Can Letter Any Style You Imagine

Several weeks ago I began to think about designing a printed promo poster for clients. Something nice to hang on their office walls. The end result is a Giclée print in 19" X 12" format on cold press paper. The print quality is beautiful on a textured surface. I plan to submit this lettering piece to the Type Directors Club call for entires this December.



This project involved a lot of drawing and I filled up one of my studio walls with sketches. I had to figure out how to create a easy to read complex lettering design. My preliminary sketches had too much going on but the basic idea and structure was good.



I scanned the most toned down sketch for template use in Illustrator. Next step was to render a number vector versions as reversed B/W to determine what areas needed to be refined for contrast and legibility.



The major obstacle of this design was the cap L . For nearly a week I tried different shapes with interior fills and nothing worked. I found a visual solution when I looked at the scroll carving of an antique chest in my hallway. I took a photo, sketched some more and got the details I needed.



After finishing the B/W art many color versions were created with Illustrator and Photoshop. Quick screen comps to figure out the color. I wanted a visual that resembled printed matchbook covers from the 1930's. Initially a textured background existed but did not fit in with the overall design. A cutline gradation was produced to pop the lettering off the background and lead to my logo mark in the bottom right corner.