Art is the signature of Civilization....Beverly Sills

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print media examples

This is a very small sample of the tremendous number
of text style communication formats everywhere.

4 BASICS TO BETTER LETTERING
Basic No. 1: KNOW LETTER STYLES

serifs   The left sketch shows (a) the parts of a letter, and (b) guide lines which control the height and stem placements. The circled areas on the "Y" identify one form of a "serif" which caps the stem ends. There are 3 different ones in the Roman sample below: tapered curve, rectangular, and straight line. See them?
roman letter styles

Roman style, an unusual "thick and thin" letter, often has thickness in different stem places. It usually has style endings called "serifs" on each stem end.

poster letter styles

Poster style, bold or general, is very popular and easy to read. It has even thickness in all directions and may or may not have serif endings.

 script letter styles

Script is a "connected" letter style, can be thick and thin or even thickness. It usually is "italic" or slanted. It is a very graceful, decorative style.

company trademarks

Unusual or "trademark" text styles are usually copyright protected. They are created for specific company logos. Creating these new font styles takes lettering to exciting developments.

We began by finding 1 example of each style: Roman and Poster styles in upper, lower, and mixed case; 1 Script and Trademark; 1 Extended , and if possible, 1 Condensed form--a very difficult one to find today. Samples could be overlapped and arranged in any direction and had to be labeled.

assignment
flashing arrow    Now we're ready to begin drawing the different letter styles. In Lettering 3 we practice mechanical spacing. Got a ruler handy?

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