My Top 5 Favorite Lettering Books for Inspiration

May 13, 2025

Since the start of my hand lettering journey in 2018, I’ve build a little library of lettering books for both education and inspiration. Although there’s tons of inspiration online, I still love turning the pages of a beautifully curated art book and poring over every detail. In case you also love to nerd out over beautiful books and beautiful lettering, I thought I’d share my top five favorite lettering books for inspiration. These are the books I turn to most when I want to ignite that creative spark.

If you’re also interested in finding books to help you improve your lettering technique, I’ll share a list of those in a future post!

Goodtype, The Art of Lettering: Perfectly Imperfect Hand-Crafted Type Design

This is one of the first lettering inspiration books I ever purchased. It was published in 2018 which was the same year I starting learning the art of hand lettering. At that time, the GoodType Instagram account was run by Brooke Robinson (author) and it was the go-to hub for lettering artists of all skill levels. They hosted a weekly prompt called GoodType Tuesdays and back then, getting your work featured on those Tuesdays meant a huge boost in visibility (having my own work featured really helped me grow my Instagram presence when I was first starting out). This book is filled with many of the lettering rock stars who were at the forefront of the movement at that time and many of them are still creating amazing work to this day.

Handstyle Lettering: From Calligraphy to Typography (20th Anniversary Edition)

This little book is absolutely packed with lettering inspiration. The first section of the book highlights 6 artists with interviews and images showcasing their varied styles, and there’s a brief lettering guide with practice pages at the back of the book. Sandwiched between the two are 170+ pages of incredible lettering sketches, inked layouts and full-color finalized artwork.

Little Book of Lettering

Another pint-sized gem, this little book is divided into three sections, showcasing Digitally Drawn Lettering in section one, Hand-drawn and Illustrated Lettering in section two and Three-dimensional Lettering in section three. Each section features several artists, including images of their work and a brief description of their process.

Junk Type: Typography • Lettering • Badges • Logos

In this book you’ll find an eclectic collection of vintage typography, photographed from signs, labels, logos, toys, packaging and even old machinery. This collection was borne out of the author’s self-described obsession with discovering stunning letterforms while exploring antique shops, flea markets and garage sales. Lucky for us, all this inspiration has been documented in one place so we don’t have to go ‘junking’ to dig through the dust ourselves (unless, of course, you’re into that).

The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection: A History and Catalog

This tome is for the real type nerds. It’s a comprehensive collection of American wood type from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s. The book does include quite a bit of history if you’re interested in those technical details but if you just want to look at cool letterforms, it features hundreds of type specimens from that era – from very simple type styles to the intricate and ornate.