The Art of Hand-Lettering: Techniques for Mastery and Practice

Author Helm Wotzkow, a commercial artist specializing in advertising, leads readers step by step from beginning to advanced skills. His extensive experience provides so many helpful suggestions and tips that even professional letterers will find useful new ideas on almost every page.

Wotzkow begins with advice on the tools necessary to hand-lettering. He then proceeds to a detailed discussion and analysis of roman majuscule and minuscule characters, the lettering upon which most styles are based. Both pen and brush lettering are covered. Subsequent chapters explore italic, gothic, script, and block styles of lettering as well as negative lettering, perspective lettering, and lettering on curves. Each chapter is illustrated with scores of examples of fine lettering executed by Wotzkow and his students. Rather than presenting a series of hard-and-fast rules, the author helps readers analyze existing forms, discover new techniques, and develop their own critical faculties.

"Valuable for the student, the teacher, the lecturer, [and] the designer," declared School Arts of this thorough, practical guide to hand-lettering.