Francis Chouquet - The Lettering Workshops: 30 Exercises for Improving Your Hand Lettering Skills

THE LETTERING WORKSHOPS

30 Exercises for Improving Your Hand Lettering Skills

Francis Chouquet

Editor: Jocelyn Howell

Translation: Marie Deer

Graphic design and layout: monsieurgerard.com

Production layout: Kim Scott, Bumpy Design

Cover art: Francis Chouquet

Project manager: Lisa Brazieal

Marketing coordinator: Mercedes Murray

ISBN: 978-1-68198-444-5

1st Edition (1st printing, March 2019)

English language edition 2019 Rocky Nook, Inc.

Authorized translation from the French edition

Original French title: Les Ateliers du lettering

2018, Groupe Eyrolles, Paris, France

(French ISBN: 978-2-212-67513-9)

French edition cover creation: Studio Eyrolles @ ditions Eyrolles

Rocky Nook, Inc.

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San Rafael, CA 94901

USA

www.rockynook.com

Distributed in the UK and Europe by Publishers Group UK

Distributed in the U.S. and all other territories by Ingram Publisher Services

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018955183

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This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Printed in China

This book would never have seen the light of day without the help of a few people whom I would like to mention here.

First of all, my wife, Silja, who allows me to live out my passion every day, even when nothing is simple. I would like to give a big thank you to her and to my children for having given me the time to write this book, sometimes in the evenings and on weekends.

Thanks to Nathalie Tournillon, my editor, for her trust and patience throughout the project. Thanks as well to Anas Nectoux for her help these past few months, for managing the daily back-and-forths and all the various changes that had to be made.

Thanks as well to Brice Lande Badalge for helping me with decisions when I wasnt sure about something. It is always rewarding to discuss things with you.

I would not be doing this work today if I had not had the opportunity, at a crucial point in my life, to encounter the work of Doyald Young, Herb Lubalin, Saul Bass, Luca Barcellona, Niels Shoe Meulman, and Ken Barber. Thank you to all of you for having put the letter on such a pedestal.

Illustrations: Francis Chouquet, unless otherwise indicated in the captions and below.

: Ford Motor Company (left); The Coca-Cola Company (right)

: GearedBull

: rangizzz / Adobe Stock

: Mirexon / Shutterstock

: Richard D. Sheaff

: lettett / Shutterstock

: album edited by El Toro Records

We thank everyone who has contributed to the illustrations for this book and we apologize in advance for any errors or omissions.

Lettering began with the American letter painters of the second half of the nineteenth century. They were the ones who named this art, which began as hand lettering.

This discipline, a direct descendant of calligraphy, consisted of drawing letters with a paintbrush, in styles that were called brush lettering or script lettering, which will be described in detail later. These styles could be found on numerous signs and advertisements covering the walls of buildings. Lettering very quickly spread into the marketing field and could be found in print advertising and also in the creation of visual identities, especially in logos. A number of famous brands have had hand-lettered logos from their inceptions, including Coca-Cola and Ford.

The first version of the script-lettered Ford logo appeared in 1906. It was reworked in 1911 to take the form it has today. It is one of the most beautiful examples of hand-lettered logos.

The Coca-Cola logo dates back to 1886 and has barely changed since its creation.

Lettering continued to be a vibrant field in the United States, with continually evolving styles, up until the arrival of computers. Typographic characters then came into use in the 1950s and 1960s with the emergence of fonts such as Helvetica and Futura.

In Europe, the field of lettering did not enjoy the same level of enthusiasm at first. Even though there was some lettering done in the American style, the Europeans were more inclined to use typographic characters with serifs, and later sans-serif fonts, or even fonts that imitated handwriting, such as Roger Excoffons Mistral font. That font was a contributing factor in the use of handwritten characters on Parisian restaurant signs and signs for other kinds of businesses in the 1960s.

Once computers and new printing techniques arrived, the practice of lettering was gradually abandoned. Letter painters became rare and graphic designers, now equipped with computers, saw their work evolve toward the almost exclusive use of computer fonts. As a result, lettering almost disappeared, except in the work of a few diehards, such as typographers and calligraphers.

It was not until the early 2010s that a number of graphic designers decided to refocus on letter design and give lettering its own place in the landscape of graphic design again. Thus, vintage styles have made a comeback. The letter has regained some nobility for professionals in visual communication who want to create unique works.

But this renaissance is also an expression of the need to return to a more authentic and manual kind of activity, the desire to get ones eyes off the computer screen to rediscover the joys of drawing. Because lettering is, most of all, drawing! Widely considered to be a way of distancing oneself from the computer and, more specifically, from the Internet, the discipline of lettering is, in certain ways, akin to meditation: an activity that we can plunge into and that keeps us focused for hours, making us forget everything around us. Lettering is all of that and much more, and this is what I invite you to discover in this book.