Lessons
So You Think You Can't Design Custom Lettering?
36:31 2How to Treat Art as a Job
05:16 3Setup & Automate a Project
05:52 4Dive in to the Creative: Brainstorming & Thumbnail Sketches
05:00 5How To Gain Inspiration
04:05 6How to Find a Motivator
16:03 7Manipulate Existing Fonts
19:51 8Manipulate Existing Fonts: Embellishing
12:15Manipulate Existing Fonts: Adding a Drop Shadow
08:16 10Illustrate Original Letterforms
16:21 11Illustrate Original Letterforms: From Sketch to Illustrator
08:32 12Illustrate Original Letterforms: Create Simple Shapes
11:39 13Illustrate Original Letterforms: Discover the Pathfinder Palette
35:04 14Illustrate Original Letterforms: Use the Offset Path Tool
09:58 15Lettering By Hand
04:38 16Lettering By Hand: Flare Tip Pen
18:31 17Lettering By Hand: Sharpie
11:57 18Lettering By Hand: Brush Pens
18:08 19Lettering By Hand: Watercolor
10:49 20Lettering By Hand: Working in Illustrator
15:44 21Final Words of Advice
03:43Lesson Info
How To Gain Inspiration
Now I want to talk about, um, inspiration and and violation so there's a lot of those really great inspirational sites out there, right? And, um, what we can't dio as graphic designers and this needs to be a religion, we can't just redo what we see, we're not here to regurgitate we're here to create new things for the world, so we as graphic designers, we are, um, defining visual culture were influencing the visual culture of our world, so the last thing we want to dio is just re d'oh now I'm not saying everything needs to be new and modern, but everything needs to be done by you. And I know it's hard because I know sometimes we work in firms or we work for places where the art director will just flip, open a magazine or give you a bunch of images attached an email and say, do this and that's a hard fight to fight, and I'm not going to say, just tell them no every time, but we got to know that the bigger picture is I need to create new things I need to create things from scratch, and I...
want to feel good about the work that I have sent out and know that boy, I hope so, and so never sees that because I did the exact same thing that they did we don't want to do that. We don't want to live in fear that we'll all the people we ripped off see us someday. So my best idea is just don't rip anybody off. Um, so back here on the computer, let's g o and this, by the way, happens at about age thirty I had a good run without him, okay, so my favorite inspiration site is called design separation dot net and what's really cool about design, inspiration, dot net is you can just type in lettering just like that. I didn't press a button, I just started typing lettering, so site is super clean and it's going to show me all these lettering, sam apples. So what I want you to do with inspiration is to use it as a means of snapping you out of a funk, because right now I was saying that I'll do these ideas, and it was all just coming off top my head, I can't act like act like I'm always going to be able to give you something right off my head. I'm not, you know, um, and maybe some of these idea, maybe I'm going to go back and be like, you know, that little intersect thing, that wasn't a great idea, um, I still need one more concept, um, let me let me look around here. Okay? Maybe maybe I could do something with, like western type lettering that has the little breaks in the brackets like that. Um maybe I just do something completely original unused like watercolors to, um you know, watercolors teo write the word out that could be cool. Um, obviously will be in my handwriting, not there's. Um, maybe I'll just write script out as quick as I can, um and put some texture in it. Maybe I'll do something with my pencil and then leave the pencil lines there, so you kind of get that texture in that feel so all of this stuff needs to act as a slap in the face uh, cold water on your face. Something like that. That's what? That's how this stuff needs toe act not I'm going to do that exact thing, and this isn't something I expect all graphic designers to heed. Teo uh, I just want these graphic designers that are involved in this class. I'm watching this class to know that this is my challenge for you is to stop getting the direction and trying to wreak urge it ate it perfectly that's not going to make you better what's inside of you how can you do this and what is something that you've been wanting to dio that's going to motivate you
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
This was a great class to watch. Extremely informative and fun. It's great to see someone so passionate about they work.
Eric
A great class that inspires a lot of confidence and shows off some very simple yet effective techniques to create great lettering.
Cory Kensinger
Totally worth my time! I wasn't expecting Brandon to give such an impactful launch into this course. Brandon really gives you an insight into his life and his real experience as a designer, helping you not with just designing cool things but helping you set your mindset and expectations, pursuing this as a lifestyle and craft. I found lots of little workflow tricks that I will be using immediately. The only downside I found in this course was the speed Brandon teaches some concepts. I had to use the 15s rewind button a lot while taking this course. I know it's because Brandon is used to working fast, but I would have really appreciated a more paced explanation of something. For example, he used Option key a lot during the course of the class while using a Pathfinder function. That was one little thing that never got explained. After looking it up, I found it was for creating a compound shape while cutting the shape. Aside from that, one of the best design courses I've seen yet.