Motoquick Concept

Here's a concept I did for motorcycle repair shop "Motoquick" today. Sketch ---> Illustrator

Typographical Emotion

Sometimes the best part of hand lettering is it's imperfection. We live in such a digital world where every stroke is clinical in it precision. The personal touch, the humanity, is left out of much design. Which is great for many things, but sometimes its nice to have an element of personal touch in graphic design. Mary Kate McDevitt's work is a great example of this. You can see the personality of the designer in all of her work. Emotion is evident in each piece. That's what makes great handmade type.

See a few more examples of her work after the jump.

Monday Dribbble Hunting

Dribbble is a great website to look at really fresh work (and post your own work!) that is in process from lots of creative designers. There is always awesome typographic work for inspiration as well. Some of my favorites from today...

Anchor Paper Co. by Drew Melton.

Curiosity by Adam Grason.

Upgrade your Grey Matter by Jason Carne.

National Supply by Reide Iredale.

Vintage Inspiration

Sometimes when I get tired of looking at contemporary design (although, that doesn't happen often) I look through old books from the early 1900's and 1800's. Much of the larger text on book covers and in illustrations of this time period is hand drawn. Just by doing a little hunting around at book sales, garage sales or in the library you can find lots of interesting examples of typography you won't find anywhere else. Check out the broad range of examples from this time period.

More cool stuff after the jump.

Jeni's

What's better than handmade typography? Not much. Maybe ice cream, especially Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams. Some of my favorite ice cream ever, and its from my home state. But this blog isn't about desserts. One thing that makes the Jeni's brand so amazing is their use of handmade lettering. Everywhere. From their custom logo, to their menus and their packaging. Every part of their brand experience has a warm, personal touch enhanced by the use of unique, yet cohesive custom type. Overall it makes you feel welcome, like you are part of a big family of icecream (and design) lovers.

More after the jump.

LEAUXCAL TYPOGRAPHY

Living in Southern Louisiana means lots of interesting handpainted signs and typography. Alot of it is not so good, but sometime you find some gems. One of the handpainted pieces I love is just around the corner from where I live. I have no idea who painted this sign, but I love the 1920's, East Coast vibe it has.

Have you seen some cool local handmade type around you? Snap a picture or send me a link, I'd love to see it!

Illustration

Chris Piascik, an independent illustrator from  New England,  has a ton of great hand done type on his website. His fun, witty style gives his work a unique, vintage looking edge. He does a daily drawing everyday, Monday-Friday. A great reminder of how much making work daily can really push your personal boundaries and creative mind. Check out some of his images here.

 

Check out some more of his awesome work after the jump.

Classic Script

I love this example of classic script with a contemporary flair from designer Clint McManaman. His pairings of washed out black and white type and vintage-y feeling photos give a vibrant aesthetic of specific times, events and places. See more of his diverse workings in graphic design and UX design on his Dribbble.

Kids vs Grownups

Check out this awesome live video, featuring juxtaposed letters being drawn by a child and graphic designer (Job Wouters). Job's design work is part of this growing contemporary design movement of handmade type that can help keep alive the dying artform of handwriting in a digital age. Penmanship is important not only as a practice and artform, but also as it teaches and develops other important life skills. Job's website displays a great variety of styles within this diverse design niche.

 

Check out more work here. And see a nice writeup about Job's work from FastCoDesign here.

Type Demo in Illustrator

Wanna know how to make custom type in Illustrator? Every graphic designer should know how to do this, whether you use hand drawn fonts on a regular basis. Understanding how curves and forms work to create the shapes of each letter is very important knowledge to have. This technique is typically how I create most of my custom type. Its fairly easy to learn and put into regular practice even for beginning designers. I love playing around with custom brushes. And if you don't feel like making your own brush, there are plenty of unique, free brushes you can download online.
 

You can check out the full post after the jump.

The Spectrum of Handmade Type

Looking for creative graphic inspiration? Then you should probably check out Friends of Type. Experimental type, strange, often sarcastic copy and a wide spectrum of styles make for an afternoon quickly gone. I love this recent post. "Rebuffering" by Jason Wong

And "TV Party" by Curtis Jinkins

Type is Art

One of the reasons I love type made by hand is the process of it. It's a lot like the process of designing a good product. You start with hand sketching, move into rough models and often create final images digitally. One great example of type making process is Alan Ariail's work over at The Art of Hand Lettering. Alan has a ton of great examples of quality lettering, you could spend hours looking through the work. One of my favorites is this logo with lots of great process images.

Literal Handmade Type

This one has been around the blogs a lot, but it really is a beautiful example of experimental typography. When the artist (Tien-Min Liao) shifts their hand positions, uppercase becomes lowercase. A physical and visual challenge that allows us to consider how type and graphics interact with and effect the human body and mind. Check out these beautiful gifs.

 

Vital

I saw this great example of custom type today over on the Alt/Rock band Anberlin's Facebook page. If anyone knows the artist let me know. I love this work. Most likely this was sketched and digitized with an awesome texture applied too! Connecting and combining letters is something that has just started popping up in the design community (as far as I've seen) in the past six months or so. You can add a lot of visual interest to a minimal design just through this creative addition. A great example of handmade type from a very creative band!

First Post!!

A poster I designed this past week(and didn't end up using), reminiscent of vintage mountaineering posters. The type is a digitally altered version of Lost Type Co-op's "Wisdom Script" Changes were made to the main text "A Heroic Life." Altered to provide a contrast to the ruggedness of the sepia-toned mountainscape, The flowing script creates a sense of adventure, while also providing some unexpected variations to a well designed type.