Tips on drawings?

Typofactory

Hello,
I am an ameteur type designer, and I have, thus far, been designing straight into the computer. I want to change that, especially because I am starting a serif font. I have terrible drawing skills. Do any of you have good, actionable tips for getting better at drawing letterforms?

Chris Lozos

Practice is the only cure

Andreas Stötzner

do basic calligraphy studies with a broad nib pen or brush. This is essential for getting a feeling about letterforms (classical Latin in particular).

John Hudson

Use methods that build up letter shapes, rather than trying to draw outlines. For example, draw a skeletal structure, and then incrementally add weight to it to build up the modulated strokes. Or try the sketching method taught by Gerrit Noordzij, in which letters are built up from hatching that follows the angle of a writing tool, than then outlined:

jeremy tribby

Erik van Blokland has a good video about the method John is describing -  https://vimeo.com/11491627

“The origin of the serif” by Catich is a good book to look at. Plenty of people disagree with his thesis on, well, the origin of the serif, but he breaks down Roman capitals into a few modular brushstrokes that I think are  instructive for drawing Latin 
if you don’t have much experience drawing in general, I would recommend a beginners figure drawing class. Drawing what you see is good practice for drawing what you imagine 

John Hudson

[Off topic]

Plenty of people disagree with [Catich’s} thesis on, well, the origin of the serif

Still? I thought brush derived terminals in Roman capitals was now generally accepted as the most convincing explanation.

John Butler

To this day, one of my favorite references remains David Harris’The Art of Calligraphy. It is very well illustrated, it organizes the scripts roughly chronologically, and I’ve honestly found nothing approaching its quality since.

Also dig Stan Knight’s Historical Scripts for deeper detail and finer distinctions within genres.

I also recommend calligraphy instruction books by Julius de Goede, with the caveat that they tend to be available only in German or Dutch.

You can go nuts buying different kinds of pens. A few Pilot Parallel Pens for the broad-nib stuff are money well spent. Speedball dip pens for the copperplate stuff are good to have too.

Nick Shinn

When you say you are “designing straight into the computer” you are in fact drawing lines. Drawing is not just pen or pencil on paper, but also manipulating bezier paths.

This equivalence is more apparent when the interface tool is a stylus and tablet, rather than a trackpad or mouse.

**

I recommend finding a piece of old typography, printed from foundry type, and attempting to make a digital facsimile of it—drawing straight into the computer. 

jeremy tribby

John Hudson said:

[Off topic]

Plenty of people disagree with [Catich’s} thesis on, well, the origin of the serif

Still? I thought brush derived terminals in Roman capitals was now generally accepted as the most convincing explanation.

not to put him on the spot but I believe I most recently heard this from @Dave Crossland