A few tips for your lettering challenge and a new workshop!
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Hello everyone,
This letter was supposed to be published on Friday, which I could not do because I was exhausted. I said I would do it on Monday. Too exhausted again. But today I found the energy to write you that post I am supposed to send you every week. But sometimes it does not work. And you know what? THAT IS JUST FINE! It’s ok not to be ok.
So today here we are :) It has been 8 or 9 days since the beginning of the “30 days of lettering” challenge. On my side, this is a pretty good exercise. I know sometimes I can’t deal with too much practice for many reasons. But I do my 10 minutes a day. This is incredible how it helps my creativity and improve my style.
Daily practice, style and assignments
The other day I found out two really great creators I follow were talking about daily practice. First, the inevitable Lisa Congdon, who is probably my favorite inspiration where we talk about style, voice and mental health for creatives. And few days ago, she did published a video where she talks about how daily practice can help you find your style. Check out her video:
I also came across the great project from Wendy Mac of DrawTogether where she makes a great 30 days of drawing too with her subscribers.
And she wrote a post about a prompt for the last week of the challenge where she talks about “Drawn Journaling”. The post is only for her paid subscribers but there is enough accessible to understand the principle of the idea: think about something that happened today (or yesterday if you plan to draw early in the morning) and mix drawing and journaling. The examples she gives are really good.
But what if we would apply that idea to lettering? Why not take something that happened, that you did see, or did read, or did feel and make a lettering out of it?
I love that idea. Choose an emotion for example, put words on it and write them in your style, or at least a word that talks about that emotion. You work on your style and your voice at the same time :)
Check out these 2 persons, Lisa and Wendy, they have plenty to share when we talk about style and daily practice.
Some reminders for those who struggle
In today’s newsletter, I would like to remind you of some insights that seem really important to me for that challenge. I know many of you actually do the challenge but some struggle by doing it alone on their side, with many questions, fears and procrastination. I am thinking of setting something up so we could do it all together in one place, outside of the social medias. I might write something about it in September.
But yes, I am really really really sure daily practice for a period of time is a game changer. It happened to me. And I feel like sharing my ideas but letting you do it alone on your side might be difficult. So I don’t know if it will really help you but here are some tips I find important when you do that challenge.
Do it for you
This is not a performance, this is practice. You should do what you want to work on, forget about social medias. Also maybe forget about publishing. Just practice, just for you and just for 10 minutes. You will see a big difference. I publish most of the days because I have a really clear idea and time to do it. But you don’t have to do the same.
Make a plan
Plan in advance what you want to work on. Don’t wait until you are in front of your piece of paper/iPad and wait for inspiration. It does not work that way. Create a plan. Maybe not too detailed, but define what you want to do, and plan it for a week for example. It can be a style, a series of words, a technique, etc.
Have a routine
Choose the time of the day you think you can do the challenge. And keep it. For example, it can be at night when everybody sleeps at home. Or before everybody wakes up. Or after lunch. Find a time during the day and keep it that way. This is also the best way to keep it after the challenge is finished.
It’s ok to miss a day
Again, you do it for you and that is ok if a day or two you don’t have time or feel too tired. It happened to me already in this challenge. No pressure and please don’t be critical with yourself.
It’s ok to fail
Somedays you create sh*t. You don’t like what you do, you are frustrated. I understand that :) But at least you tried and this is experience. Everything you try will help you for the next day. Again, you are not “really bad at lettering”. Sometimes you try something and it works and sometimes it does not. But maybe you learn what to change or improve to make something you like? Take it easy.
These tips may sound simple to many of you but we are really good at thinking negatively of our skills/craft. It is easier to fail than succeed sometimes. But you know you won’t succeed without taking risks and trying new things.
Meditate on these tips and if you want to start the challenge now, go for it! Do 20 days, or even start 30 days from now, that is all ok :)
A new workshop: Lettering to font!
The first weekend of September, I will have the chance to host a workshop with the great people from Ilovetypography.com, and we will create a font out of a found lettering. We will explore some vintage lettering, choose a style we really like and make a font with Fontself on the iPad. We will draw the letters there just like in the good old times. The software will take care of vectorizing, spacing, and kerning. You will focus on drawing. We will create some ligatures and export everything in the Glyphs app where we will play with some Opentype and organise our font. This should be a lot of fun!
So if you are interested, check out all the details on that page. Also don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any questions :)
And again, if you want to support my work or become a patron, don’t hesitate to check out that page:
Have a nice week, don’t hesitate to contact me if you are doing the lettering challenge and struggling, I will be totally happy to help.
Take care,
Francis.