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Adventures in Hand Lettering: The Cafe Set


You can't escape the appeal of hand lettering, in script form or printed letters - there is just a ton of personality and life in this style of illustration.

That's right. I used the word "illustration". Because modern hand lettering is more in line with drawing, than the usual image you think of when you imagine someone sitting down to write a letter in flowing script.

Each letter is formed individually and connected (or not) to the next in very specific ways. There is the smooth flow look, block letter forms, serifs and non serifs, and of course, "bounce" lettering which has a playful feel.

I'm still very much in the learning / trial and error, (and error!) phase with my own hand lettering and I wanted to chronicle my progress in sporadic blog posts in hopes of inspiring others to take up the challenge.

Hand lettering and modern calligraphy is trendy at the moment, but was a bit of a lost art. I've often mourned the loss of cursive in elementary education - it's just not being taught. To the point where students at my school library (I'm a library technician in a French immersion school) will show me English book covers with the title in cursive and ask, "Is this book in French?". They can't read the font.

I've recently started a writing/lettering club at the school to encourage students to discover cursive. Our end goal will be for each student to draft their own inspirational quote message, create the lettering, and incorporate an illustration. I'll do a separate post letting you know how it goes.

But for now, here's one of my print lettering efforts, I call it my Cafe Set, complete as a transparent PNG file for you to use in your own projects. Download it HERE.

For the pillow project in the above image, I created a vinyl stencil with my Cricut machine and hand-painted my Cafe Set design onto the raw canvas using black fabric paint. I then enlisted the talents of my mother-in-law to sew the actual pillow. I have zero sewing skills.

Might have to add that to my ever-growing list of things to try...when I'm feeling a bit braver.

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