Tips on Creating Typographic Designs
While it’s true that a picture is worth many wonderful words, an elegant and fun typographic design is just as exciting and eye-catching. Designs created using hand lettering, calligraphy, and typography are becoming more popular by the day.
However, it’s not just enough to have a clever slogan or saying. The right choice of font or style of hand lettering—along with the layout—is an art form in itself. Let’s take a look at some trending typographic designs along with some tips, that’ll make your designs on point.
Less Is More
Sometimes, one word is all you need. In the examples below, each design features only one word and focuses more on the style and layout. If you are going to use graphical elements, make sure they contribute to the overall design. Preview the design without the elements and see if it still works.
“Hey” by wordquirk, “Wanderlust” by lordwharts, and “Nope” by sebastianst.
Give It Texture
Adding a worn and textured look, not only works for hand lettering but fonts as well. The effects created by adding texture can often contribute to the design even more than graphical elements. This could be achieved by adding stipple, halftones, or distressed textures. See more about creating distressed designs here.
“On Top of Mountains” by CabinSupplyCo, “Find Your Own Way” by wordquirk, and “Trash the Map…” by sebastianst.
Mix It Up
Try using more than one style of lettering or typeface, but make sure to not use too many. The goal is to get each style of lettering/font to mix well with each other. In the examples below, two or more styles have been used and they fit very well. The genius design by Skitchism on the left, uses up to 5 styles of lettering which can often be tricky, however each one contributes to the overall design and shape of it.
“Born Genius” by skitchism, “League of Letters” by lettershoppe, and “Rad to the Power of Sick” by meganpalmer.
Pro-Tips
Try creating different versions of your designs for different products. The design above by Lettershoppe for example, “My Bed Is Calling”, features stars only on a handful of products.
Trying placing your designs above an image, as in the example by Cabin Supply Co above. This also looks great on wall tapestries, prints, and duvet covers.
Resources
Type Connection – An interactive site for pairing typefaces.
Fonts in Use – Get inspired with this archive of typography.
Fontstruct – Build, share, and download fonts for free.
Glyphr – Free web-based font designer.
iFontmaker – Create custom fonts on your iPad.
Make some typography based designs, and share them in the comments below.
