Technical Lettering - Freehand Lettering

Freehand Lettering

For quick action in work, it is required to have practice of freehand lettering as it allows to represent ideas in a short time and in a more efficient manner. Freehand lettering is as shown in the adjacent image.In freehand lettering, the two basic things are generally followed:
The letters to be drawn, though freehanded, should be stable and graceful. In some cases the stability may get damaged. (As in case of P and F, which show a Top-Heavy effect. But it is still unavoidable.) In other cases the stability and the grace of the letters may be maintained by either
1.Drawing the lower parts of the letters like B,E etc. wider than the upper parts
or
2. Drawing the horizontal line at the center of these letters just above their geometric axis.(Exception: In case of the letter A, the horizontal member is drawn below geometric center axis. Here along with stability one more factor is considered that is equality of areas below and above the center line. If a horizontal line is drawn exactly at the center, then the difference in the areas of the triangle above the line and the trapezium below the line is much larger. This creates an unusual effect to our eyes.)
* When the combination of letters occures then it should be kept in mind that we are writing a whole word not a single letter. Hence emphasis should be on the overall beauty of the word rather than one or two letters.
The GOTHIC is the most common lettering font used in freehand lettering. The reason behind this is, the width of each line element of each letter is same throughout. Either STRAIGHT GOTHIC or INCLINED GOTHIC maybe used for lettering. The angle of inclination of the letters in INCLINED GOTHIC is 15° with respect to the vertical.