CLASS
Typography I

PROFESSOR
Kelcey Gray

PROJECT DURATION
2 Weeks

Drawn Letter

SKETCHING PROCESS

Letter Anatomy

A ruler was only allowed for the baseline thus the letter itself was entirely done freehand. I originally assumed the letter would be simple because of its straight lines, but getting the stems to be proportional proved to be a challenge. Before starting, I thought the serifs would be the most difficult part, but the serifs actually turned out to be the easiest part of the letter. The main body of the W required at least five attempts to achieve ideal angles and correct stroke.

IN-CLASS CRITIQUE

Fonts in Use

Upon completion of the assignment, each person’s letter was hung along the wall. With prompts from our professor, we posted sticky notes describing the tone of each letter. It was interesting to see how just a single letter can set a specific tone or create a certain feeling.

FINAL REFLECTION

In Conclusion

This project was unlike any type experience I ever had. It required me to get close and comfortable with the minute details of a letter in a way that I hadn’t thought of before. Especially with the detail in the serifs, hand drawing the letter without a ruler allowed me to observe the smaller details that go into lettermaking. I grew appreciative of type designers and their process because I struggled with one letter for so long, I cannot imagine having to hand draw an entire alphabet of my own creation. Type designers have to be so detail-oriented in creating typefaces and different font variations of those typefaces, which may be something I want to learn more about in the future.