The four main styles of lettering
Before we get into the lettering tutorials and helpful guides I wanted to give a quick rundown on the four main styles of lettering (or technically the four main styles of typography).
Once you learn these then it should be easy going forward knowing what you want to create. Certain styles are better for some things, and some are better for other things. Let’s get into it!
Serif fonts have extra wee flicks or flourishes at the end of each stroke. They were made to be easier to read at smaller sizes, particularly in print, than sans serif styles. There are quite a number of different styles of serifs; slab serif, old-style serifs, and hairline serifs to name a few.
While lettering obviously needs to be legible, most of the time it’s going to be a lot larger than body copy in books. So the serifs on hand lettering type are really just pretty flourishes so you can go a bit wilder than typefaces made for print.
Basically translated as without serifs, without the flicks. Lacking the embellishments at the end of each stroke means that visually they look more modern and simplistic. You can have humanistic sans, grotesque sans, and geometric sans for example but we can go into the differences between the types of sans serif styles another day.
More commonly used on the web for digital work as at low resolutions serifs can get lost, but for lettering as you’re not usually going to have body copy size text you can use what you like. Serif or sans serif.
Script lettering sums up most styles that are joined together by a continuous movement. If you do cursive writing then your handwriting will be script lettering! It can vary massively depending on the amount of flourishes you add, the speed at which you draw it, and the angle at which you draw it. Then of course if you keep those factors consistent throughout the words or vary the consistency to add bounce and personality.
A lot of lettering, and brush lettering in particular, contains script styles as they’re more of a display typeface so make your lettering pieces look a bit more fancy than a serif or sans serif. Combining a script with one of the two above can be an easy way to add flow and hierarchy to a lettering piece.
The fun type style. Of course all type styles are fun but with decorative type you can afford to go a little crazy. Decorative styles can lean dangerously towards bad legibility but you can get away with it most of the time, depending on the situation. Decorative styles are usually used for headlines or larger titles, they are not for body or smaller text.
A lot of different styles can fit into the decorative category, from the extreme of creating letters out of objects like ribbon or wood to simply editing the proportions to throw off the contrast. Sometimes the other type styles above can be included in a decorative style, having a base of a serif or sans serif and adding decorative elements like 3D elements, ornamental line work, and shadows.
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