Digital tools make it easier than ever to get the look of decorative lettering in your designs. They also speed up your workflow and give you the freedom to experiment with different styles without making a mess.
You can even find downloadable resources like practice sheets to help you get the most out of your digital programs. Many of these apps and programs have pixel-based and vector brushes that have incredible realism.
Illustrator
Whether you’re an experienced hand letterer or just getting started, Illustrator is the industry-standard tool for vector graphics. Learn how to use this software to gain efficiency, quality and style in your custom digital lettering projects.
In this start-to-finish course with designer Brandon Rike, you’ll master the tools and techniques necessary to create professional, stand-out digital lettering, whether for a personal project or a commercial one. You’ll discover how to make the most of Illustrator’s features like layers, opacity and keyboard shortcuts to speed up your workflow. You’ll even dive into some advanced topics, such as incorporating Bezier curves to make your strokes smooth and elegant.
By the end of this course, you’ll know how to use a variety of shapes to form each letterform. For example, the letter “O” is composed of two ellipses (for the width and weight), while the letter “H” is formed with three separate rectangles (the stem and crossbar). This process can greatly speed up vectorizing your lettering, especially when it comes to script fonts.
Vectors are a mathematically generated type of graphic, which means they can be resized at any size without losing clarity or becoming blurry. This is what sets Illustrator apart from other photo editing programs, which use pixel-based graphics.
Adobe introduced version 7 of Illustrator in 1997, making significant changes to the interface in an effort to converge with its desktop counterpart, Photoshop. Since then, the software has continued to evolve and expand its capabilities.
The newest versions of Illustrator offer a range of features designed to improve your productivity. Streamline your workflow with the new ‘Share for Review’ feature, which makes it easy to share and receive feedback from clients on your work. You can also save files to the Creative Library, which gives you access to all your assets across Adobe’s product line.
Inkscape
The free, open source vector graphics software Inkscape is an alternative to Adobe Illustrator for creating and editing vector drawings. It stores drawings in the industry-standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format, as well as in a variety of other formats. Inkscape supports most major image-editing programs that can export SVG files, including Adobe Photoshop, CorelDRAW and Sketch, as well as many web browsers.
Inkscape uses lines and paths as its main building blocks. Lines can be drawn with a variety of shapes, and the path tool allows for a wide range of adjustments to curves. Both of these basic tools will be important for any vector design project.
Most commercial lettering projects will include text, and Inkscape is an excellent tool for working with fonts. Its text tool can create a wide variety of styles, including rounded or curved text. It can also be used to draw letters on a path, which gives the lettering a more organic look.
Using patterns in Inkscape can add a lot of visual interest to your designs. Inkscape makes it easy to create and apply custom repeating patterns.
The software also offers a variety of tools for creating and manipulating nodes, as well as a node sculpting mode that allows you to make detailed adjustments to paths. This tutorial provides an introduction to these features, as well as some tips and tricks for working with them.
The Inkscape website contains a number of helpful tutorials, and there are also numerous YouTube videos that can provide additional instruction. Inkscape also has several bulletin board-style forums, in multiple languages, where users can ask questions and get answers from other users.
Photoshop
Photoshop is an image-editing software program that allows you to manipulate photos and create graphics. It is a versatile tool that can be used for creating professional-looking images to post on social media and print materials. Its extensive toolset allows you to add a variety of effects and textures to an image, such as blurring and sharpening, or adding texture like sand, smoke, dust, and rain. It also has a wide array of brushes that can be used for painting, drawing, and lettering.
For example, you can use the soft round brush to create a smooth, blended look, or you can select the hard round brush to make sharp, crisp lines. You can even use the clone stamp tool to remove or duplicate parts of an image, and the eraser brush to correct mistakes. There are even more sophisticated brushes that let you create textured effects, such as the water droplet or chalk brush.
If you’re new to lettering in Photoshop, check out this tutorial on using the Vertical Type tool. You’ll learn how to format text, convert it into shapes with the Create Outlines command, and reshape the letters. You can also apply fonts, alternate letters, and discretionary ligatures to fine-tune your text, similar to how dry rub on transfers would create letter-specific designs.
A well-crafted piece of lettering can blend in with a photograph, adding depth and dimension to the composition. It’s a great way to add an extra layer of interest and visual impact. But be careful not to overdo it—too much digital hand-lettering can look overproduced and fake. Instead, aim for a balance of clean vector shapes with some subtle, organic texture to give your work that authentic handmade feel. With a little practice, you’ll be able to produce professional-looking lettering that looks like it was drawn by hand.
Procreate
Designed for iPad and Apple Pencil with the finest digital drawing experience in mind, Procreate is the best tool available for creating professional hand lettering projects. With its robust features, a wide range of brushes, and the ability to capture your work in a time-lapse video, it’s a must for any serious lettering artist.
Start with the basic tools and explore what this amazing app can do for you. Procreate has a variety of settings to help you create and customize your own custom brush, from the streamlining feature that makes your strokes super smooth, to the color setting that helps you find the exact shade you’re looking for. It also allows you to layer your work with a variety of fills and textures, or add some depth with shadows and highlights.
To make your project even more impressive, Procreate can create fun GIFs and MP4 videos from your artwork. It has a feature called Animation Assist that allows you to draw over your work with different styles of animation and then record them all into one file.
With the option to use a variety of grids (3D, Isometric, Perspective, and custom), you can easily layout your compositions and get an idea of how they will look before you begin to draw. This is a great way to save time on your illustrations and ensure that your final product will look perfect!
Another handy feature in Procreate is QuickShape, which snaps wobbly hand-drawn lines and shapes into perfection. There’s also a tool called Magnetics that lets you create selections and drag them into your image, keeping the ratios accurate by allowing for automatic interpolation.
Affinity Designer
Affinity Designer is a vector design software app that can also be used as a raster design tool. It is similar to other software like Illustrator and Procreate but has some advanced features that you won’t find in the competition. It also has an affordable price and charges a one-time ownership fee instead of a monthly subscription.
A lot of lettering artists are drawn to this program for its robust and versatile tools. It can handle both vector and raster graphics and works well with Adobe Illustrator files. It also supports the SVG file format, which is ideal for web use and high-resolution printing. It is also compatible with other raster and vector graphics programs, such as Inkscape and CorelDraw.
It has a wide range of typography tools, including text to paths, kerning and tracking and can even create 3D letters. It can also easily convert fonts into outlines, and has a variety of brushes for different styles.
Another great feature of Affinity is its ability to switch between Designer Persona and Pixel Persona within the same program. This means you can be working on crisp vector-based designs and then quickly switch to raster editing with Pixel Persona’s unique brush tools.
The app also supports the Apple Pencil and offers precision, pressure sensitivity and tilt functionality that is comparable to desktop apps with a Wacom tablet. It also comes with a selection of stock image libraries from Pexels and Pixabay, providing a wealth of royalty-free images to draw and sketch on. The app also lets you mask photos with shapes and provides artistic and frame text tools for expressive, flexible formatting.
This video provides an easy-to-follow guide to getting started in Affinity Designer, covering everything from creating a new document and using premade and custom shapes to working with colors, layers, the vector brush and pen tools and more. It’s the perfect introduction to the app if you’re not familiar with it, and the host Jesse Showalter has plenty of energy that keeps this video interesting.
