In a recent post, I shared my top five favorite books for lettering inspiration. Those books are great for finding inspiring lettering styles and layouts but if you’re looking for reference books with information and how-to guides for hand lettering technique, this is the list for you.
Before we dig in, I just want to clarify something that often confuses people. When I talk about hand lettering, I’m referring to the art of drawing letters. This is different from calligraphy, which is the art of writing letters. Although some rules overlap, hand lettering and calligraphy are different skillsets, each with their own principles and techniques. Here are the books I turn to most often when I need a little guidance with the technical side of lettering.
House Industries Lettering Manual
I’m guessing that 99.9% of all professional lettering artists have this on their bookshelves. Written by Ken Barber – a well-known lettering artist, type designer and director at the design studio House Industries – this book includes easily digestible visual guides for how to build individual letterforms, words and lettering layouts. It’s also packed with case studies, inspiration and sketches. I’ve taken a couple of Ken’s workshops and I can attest to his depth of knowledge and skill. If you were only going to buy one book on hand lettering technique, this should be the one.
The Golden Secrets of Lettering
Another very popular resource, this book touches on just about everything an aspiring lettering artist needs to know. From descriptions of basic letterform anatomy to insights on becoming a professional, this book covers a lot of ground. This one also includes TONS of sketches and annotations which help make the technical information easy to digest. Highly recommended!
Mastering Hand Lettering
I would recommend this book to absolute beginners. It includes a few examples of different lettering styles and layouts but the bulk of the book is dedicated to step-by-step instructions for how to draw each letterform in lowercase, uppercase, serif and sans serif styles. There are even practice guides included so you can use it as a workbook. I found this one really helpful when I was first starting my lettering journey.
Type Matters
Technically, this book is about typography (the art of arranging typefaces/fonts) but I think it’s a really handy guide for lettering artists as well. When I was learning hand lettering, I realized that my training as a graphic designer and my understanding of typography really gave me a head start with lettering. This book includes some of the technical terms used in both typography and lettering, it shows examples of what works, what doesn’t and explains why. Not hand lettering specific but a great resource nonetheless.
The Anatomy of Type
Although this book also focuses on type rather than hand lettering, it’s a really great guide for letterform structure. The book examines 100 different typefaces, breaking down the anatomy, subtleties and style framework for each font. Analyzing this information is a wonderful way to broaden your knowledge of letterform construction which makes it much easier to build new styles when creating your own lettering artwork.
If you’re interested in learning hand lettering but don’t know where to start, my Hand Lettering in Procreate class is a very beginner-friendly guide which walks you through all the basics. Click below to watch the trailer and get more details.
Enjoy!
xo
Gia
