Calligraphy Inspiration: Brush & Petal: Such stunning watercolor + modern calligraphy work by Sarah. In addition to beautiful calligraphy, she also does wedding photography! So talented!
Graphic Design
Designer’s Guide to Creating Logo Files: Having recently found myself in the position of designing a logo for a friend, I found this very helpful. In brief: give your client Vector (CMYK, Pantone, Black, White) AI, PDF, and EPS, Raster (JPEG, PNG), and size variants.
DIY Color Study, by Mon Voir: DIY tutorial on how to get the most out of your watercolors! By blending each color with subtle hints of other ones, you can create a comprehensive color study of available tones and hues. I definitely want to do this!
The History of Ombre, by Design Sponge: This old article resurfaced in a recent Design Sponge newsletter, and I thought it was a fun and visually enticing read.
Stationery
Field Notes Colors: Shenandoah, by Three Staples: I don’t use Field Notes often so I’m still in the middle of last Spring’s Shelterwood 3-pack, but I do love all things woodsy and organic. Jinnie’s write-up is definitely encouraging me to pick up this year’s fall edition.
Ashley is a friend of my college roommate! She emailed me asking if I could do about 150 place cards for her upcoming wedding. After she sent over a few styles that she liked, we settled on an airy modern calligraphy script on kraft paper. I love how the white on kraft looks rustic, but clean.
It’s definitely wedding season — I was also in a wedding recently (my dearest friend since seventh grade), and repurposed what was left of my bouquet for these photos :)
Here are some photos, plus tips in case you want to DIY your own place cards as well!
As this was my first time doing place cards, I quickly found that I didn’t have the right tools for it. At first, I tried using my Xacto-knife to cut sheets of 8.5 x 11 kraft paper into cards, but I only got about 4 sheets in before realizing that it would take me FOREVER. Armed with coupons, I immediately went to Michael’s and purchased this paper cutter, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that it has changed my life.
I found the best way to quickly churn out 150 cards was to go full-on Henry Ford mode on my stack of paper. This is significantly faster than making each card individually.
Make ALL of your first cuts until you have a stack of 11 x 4 cards
Make ALL of your second cuts until you have a stack of 4.25 x 5.5 cards
Score ALL of your cards.
Fold ALL of your cards
Note: Scoring is the act of using a dull edge to create an indent in the paper, which makes the fold more clean. The most common tool for this is a bone folder. I don’t have a bone folder, so I used an old credit card and that worked just fine for me.
It is really important to draft your names in pencil first. Names are of varying lengths and letter heights, so planning out the card in advance will ensure that it looks centered when it’s done! I like to use the Palomino Blackwing 602, as I found it to be one of my most easily erasable pencils.
Time for ink! I did my first run of names in basic script, making sure to follow my pencil marks. Because kraft paper is more coarse, I was not able to use a dip pen due to the paper fibers catching on my nib. This extra-fine Uni Posca white paint marker was perfect for the job.
Once the first pass was done, I added swells on individual letters to give my script the graceful line variation that is characteristic of modern calligraphy. You can find a full tutorial on this method over at Lindsay’s blog post, Cheating Calligraphy Tutorial!
I filled in the swells with my white marker, let the ink dry, and then gingerly erased the pencil lines with a soft kneaded eraser.
After doing a few names, you kind of get into a groove and before you know it, you’ve done 10 or more. I did these cards in small batches of about 20 or 30, usually in the evenings after I got home from work. I would put on one of my favorite podcasts and just write on — it was a great way to unwind from the day!
I’m sending these off to Ashley tomorrow! It’s been a fun project for me, and I hope they accent her wedding day beautifully :)
Today I will show you how to add lettering art to a photograph! This is a neat way to create custom graphics for your blog, portfolio, Instagram… or just for fun!
In this example, I will be using a personal photo. If you don’t have any nice photos on hand, a great place to pick up some high-res creative commons photos is Unsplash.
Create Your Lettering
Here, I used the Akashiya New Fude Brush to create a loose, dry brush script. I chose a segment from this quotation by John Muir:
Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.
I made a few different versions to choose from. Since we will be editing our lettering in Photoshop, it’s ok if some letterforms aren’t perfect! Little imperfections, like smudges or lopsided letters, can all be fixed.
If you have a scanner, scan and save your image. If not, no worries! I do all my “scanning” with my iPhone camera. Just Dropbox/iCloud/email it to yourself to get it on your computer.
Edit Your Lettering
Open your lettering in Photoshop. It might look pretty dark and messy, but here’s where Photoshop magic comes in!
First, open up some adjustment layers and play around with the sliders until the image has a pretty clear contrast between black and white.
I usually use one or a combination of these adjustments:
Curves: This is the QUICKEST fix, but it doesn’t always work. In the Curves adjustment layer, simply click the “white” eyedropper and then click on any part of your photo that is supposed to be white. (Sometimes this washes out your image, especially if your photo was taken with uneven lighting, like mine. In this case, I didn’t use curves.)
Saturation: Slide saturation down to remove the yellow from indoor lighting.
Levels: Move the two sliders around until the black/white contrast is more clear.
I used Levels to edit this photo. You can watch me do it here!
Now you can delete your white background easily!
Go to the Magic Wand tool.
Make sure “Anti-Alias” is selected. (This makes the result less jagged)
Make sure “Contiguous” is NOT selected. (Contiguous means it will only select pixels that are connected. For example, it wouldn’t get the white space in the middle of the letter O, because it’s isolated.)
Click anywhere on your white background. You’ll see some little “marching ants”, which shows what you’ve selected to delete.
Hit delete!
You can watch me do it here:
« Note: be sure to save periodically :) »
Compose Your Lettering
Now that we’ve isolated our letters, it’s time to compose our final piece.
If you made multiple versions, pick which one you want to use.
Using a selection tool like the lasso, select and delete the ones you don’t want.
Tweak the letters to your liking. In this example, I didn’t like how “Go” looked like it was leaning too far to the left, but I liked its shape. I just cut out “Go” using the lasso tool, and rotated it (Ctrl-T to rotate) until it looked better.
You can watch me do it here:
Now you are ready to put the lettering on your photo!
Combine Lettering and Photo
Here’s my favorite part: putting it all together!
Copy your lettering art and paste it on top of your photo.
Move the lettering layer until you are satisfied with the position.
Make any final tweaks to the spacing/sizing.
Since my photo is dark, I want to make the text white so it pops. Here’s an easy way to do that!
Right click on your lettering layer and select “Blending Options”.
Tick the box for “Color Overlay”.
The default color overlay is red — change this to white.
Click OK.
You can watch me do it here:
Save and admire your finished work! :)
This post was made with Recordit, an awesome screen-to-gif software I just discovered. It’s super easy to use and I’d highly recommend it.
(I’m not affiliated with Recordit, I just thought it was really cool and wanted to share)
I am a loyal listener of the Pen Addict podcast, and pen shows are a frequent topic on the air. I’ve never been to a pen show, but from listening to Brad and Myke, it sounds like a lot of pen, paper, and ink eye candy!
In a way, a pen show is kind of like a convention — it’s a huge gathering of hobbyists and enthusiasts of this niche interest, and there are vendors, booths, items for sale, and much more.
When I found out that there was a small pen show happening in San Francisco, I knew I wanted to at least check it out. Here is a brief recap of my first pen show!
The massive ink testing stations were definitely my favorite part of the show. Each of these was hand crafted by the volunteers of the SF Pen Club! This innovative idea is essentially a large sheet of plexiglass-type material with holes drilled in. Glued into each of the holes was the cap of a simple, piston-filling fountain pen. Simply unscrew the pen from the cap to test the ink color!
There were 5 stations, each with 100 ink colors, all donated by volunteers. I have never seen this many ink colors in one setting before! They were individually numbered, with numbers corresponding to ink names and brands printed on a card.
One thing that I had heard on the podcast, but was still blown away experiencing it firsthand: the kindness and generosity of the “pen people” that I met.
I was sitting by myself at one of the ink testing stations, and two nice guys came to chat! Franz (@franzdimson) and Michael (@mpheenan) were seasoned fountain pen users, and we chatted for a while about pens and inks. Franz even let me test out some of his favorites, which you can see in the pic above!
I could easily have sat at the ink testing booth for hours, but I needed to walk around the show and scope out the other booths! Here are a few photos I took of vendor table setups.
Five Star Pens – Lots of neat antiquesIncredibly organized collection at Anderson Pens!J. Herbin ink bottles galore!
Lisa of Vanness Pens was there, and of course I had to stop by and say hi! She doesn’t know who I am, but the moment I said that I knew her from the Pen Addict Podcast, she was so warm and friendly and asked how I was enjoying my first pen show. Her table was filled inks from all different brands, plus some more rare and obscure inks that are hard to find!
Callifolio, a newer collection of inksSailor Bung Box InksThe hard-to-find P.W. Akkerman inks! Such cool packaging.
Franz insisted that, in order to have a “Quintessential Pen Show Experience”, I must talk to Susan Wirth. I was pretty nervous about talking to her, since she seemed really busy… but I did want the Quintessential Pen Show Experience!
Susan is like… the all-knowing matriarch of fountain pens. She is literally a walking encyclopedia of everything related to fountain pens, handwriting, vintage pens… you name it — you can literally feel the wisdom exuding from her as she talks. She appears a little grumpy at first, but you soon realize it’s actually a humorous, good-natured grumpiness with some sarcasm thrown in.
Susan troubleshooting an attendee’s fountain pen
I told her I had an interest in calligraphy, so I wanted to try some Italics and vintage flex pens. I had seen some incredible demonstrations of what vintage flex nibs can do, and was keen to try one myself! She set me up in front of the “Italics” and “Flexibles” section, which had some truly beautiful vintage pens on display.
She needed to take care of other show attendees, so she left me a few basic instructions:
Write as if you are actually writing. None of this “quick brown fox” nonsense!
Write two or more lines with each pen. You can’t really feel a pen if you only write a few words
Don’t think too much or write too slowly. Just write!
I decided to write a quick journal entry about the show thus far!
As you can see, each pen was very different! Some of the Italics were more dry, and that second flexible pen in particular was gushing ink. I got heart-eyes for the last one I tried (the fifth pen from the left in the photo above). Look at that flex! Unfortunately, I don’t have THAT many coins ($275) to spend on pens, so I had to put it aside and hope that I’ll run across it again at another show in the future.
Franz took a photo of me getting the Susan Wirth experience! Thanks Franz!
After testing the flexible pens and listening to Susan talk about her paper preferences, I decided to go back around and see if there were any tables I had missed. Good thing I did, because I saw Mike Masuyama, the famous nibmeister! Mike fixes up troublesome fountain pens, and can grind your pen nib to exact preferences. He didn’t believe me when I told him he was internet famous.
At this time, the show began winding down and the vendors started covering up their wares. Unfortunately I was not able to attend either Saturday or Sunday, which are supposed to be busier and more exciting. This was plenty exciting for me already, so I’m looking forward to seeing how next year’s show goes!
The #letteritaugust challenge was started by Instagram artist and calligrapher Jenny Highsmith (@jennyhighsmith)! It’s a daily creative challenge, which encourages you to follow along with each day’s prompt and create your own piece.
Here is the list of prompts that Jenny thought up for this month!
I started a few days late, so I had to catch up. At first, it was difficult dragging myself out of bed early… calligraphy is not the easiest thing to do first thing in the morning, when your eyes, brain, and fingers are still half asleep!
Eventually, it became part of my routine — either early in the morning, or in the evening before going to bed. Thinking creatively on a daily basis has definitely energized me, and I’m glad I followed through and completed the challenge.
Now that it’s ended, I thought I’d round up some of my favorite personal pieces!
For more lettering inspiration, check out the #letteritaugust hashtag on Instagram! There are some really great works in there, from aspiring calligraphers and lettering artists all over the world. It was wonderful to follow along with such great company.
I’ll be pretty busy this month, but try my best to follow along with the next challenge!
