Lettering
Senior 1 · Fine Arts
Lettering
Lesson 2 of 5
22 min
A shop sign where some letters are taller than others, or where two letters crowd together while others drift apart, looks careless even to people who know nothing about design. Good lettering follows a small set of rules about height, width, weight and spacing. Sign writers learn these rules first, because once they are in place any style, serif or sans-serif, looks professional. In this lesson you learn the names of the parts of letters and the rules that control them.
| Characteristic | Range |
|---|---|
| Case | uppercase (capitals) or lowercase (small letters) |
| Weight (thickness of strokes) | light, regular, bold, black |
| Width | condensed (narrow), normal, extended (wide) |
| Posture | upright, or slanted (italic) |
| Contrast | even strokes, or strong thick-and-thin |
Letters with a large x-height are easier to read at small sizes, because the small letters look bigger.
Capitals are not all the same width. The classical Roman capitals, on which most capital lettering is still based, fall into width groups. For letters of a given height:
Making every capital the same width is the most common beginner's mistake: the E looks bloated and the M looks squashed.
Mugisha wants to letter his name in capitals 4 cm tall on a card 29 cm wide, leaving 2 cm margins on each side, so he has 25 cm of space. He estimates each width from the width groups:
| Letter | Group | Width |
|---|---|---|
| M | widest | 4.5 cm |
| U | medium | 3 cm |
| G | round | 3.8 cm |
| I | stem | 0.8 cm |
| S | narrow | 2.2 cm |
| H | medium | 3 cm |
| A | medium | 3.2 cm |
Letters: 4.5 + 3 + 3.8 + 0.8 + 2.2 + 3 + 3.2 = 20.5 cm. Spaces: 6 gaps of about 0.6 cm = 3.6 cm. Total: 20.5 + 3.6 = 24.1 cm, which fits inside 25 cm. He will start 0.45 cm further in from each margin to centre it: (25 − 24.1) ÷ 2 = 0.45 cm.
In 1525 the German artist Albrecht Dürer published a book on measuring and geometry for artists and craftsmen. This page from it shows how to build the small letters of the Gothic style of his time.
Tip
Rule first, space by eye. Always rule guidelines before lettering, and judge spacing by squinting at the word, not by a ruler. In the exam, keep your guidelines faint but visible: they show the examiner your planning.
Name the line that all letters sit on, and the height of small letters such as x.
Solution: the baseline; the x-height.
Which letters in the word "typography" have descenders?
Solution: y, p, g, p and y: every letter except t, o, r, a and h. (The h has an ascender instead.)
Put these capitals into width groups: O, E, M, N.
Solution: O round (nearly as wide as tall); E narrow (about half); M widest; N medium (about three quarters).
A student spaces the word LION with exactly 1 cm between every pair of letters. Why might the word look uneven?
Solution: L has a big open space on its right, and O is round, so equal measured gaps give unequal-looking areas of space. The L and I will look far apart. Space by eye instead.
Capitals 5 cm tall: roughly how wide should the H and the E be?
Solution: H is medium, about three quarters of the height: about 3.75 cm. E is narrow, about half: about 2.5 cm.
Remember
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