Creative Corner: How to Draw Custom Letters in Illustrator
Our talented designers here at Tingalls Graphic Design are always making something creative. Whether it’s on their Mac, a sketchpad or the back of a napkin, their ability to create beautiful art is astounding.
One theme that often gets discussed is fonts and custom letters. One issue with custom, hand-drawn letters is that there can be inconsistencies in a family of letters. But a super-cool technique that we found at Lynda.com eradicates this problem, while offering an interesting marriage of tech and old-school lettering.
Here’s a link to a video by a gentleman named Deke McClelland, who details how the technique works.
He details work originally drafted out with a pen before bringing it into Illustrator where he traces the letters to keep them uniform, while still keeping that hand-drawn feel. If you like hand lettering, check out Deke’s technique!
But before you go, we’d like to raise a larger design question, one that revolves around custom vs. stock designs. Just as hand lettering adds a custom look and feel to any asset it’s applied to, custom web and print design also adds a stamp of uniqueness to a company’s collateral. So, the next time one of your customers asks you to choose some photos from iStock, or to design their website off of a template, take a deep breath and ask the following all-important questions:
- Is this the best representation of who your company is?
- Will customers respond to this as positively as they would to a custom design?
- Does this convey your message in the most authentic, compelling way?
If all your client can afford is an iStock photos and a template site, then by all means create the best site you can for them that fits within their budget. But if they want remarkable results, then their collateral will also need to be remarkable, which means custom is the way to go.
Need some remarkable collateral?
Feel free to contact Tingalls Graphic Design to set up a free consultation where we can discuss your needs and your goals further.
Related Posts
