Handwriting As A Design Element

by Purnima Girouard at http://www.ssreflections.com

One of the things that can give an especially human touch to a card design is simple handwriting. Each person has her own unique hand and uses it in a personal style in daily life. I think it is appropriate to think of it as a design element, since the artwork we do can be thought of in a similar way. It is always amazing to me how so many of us can use the same rubber stamps and produce entirely unique artwork!

I am talking about using ordinary handwriting – no special calligraphy skills required! In the following samples, the writing is printed or written in common cursive technique. A good first step is to just play around with your writing. Use different pens, markers, calligraphy pens, and tip sizes. You may be surprised how a change of writing instrument can change the character of your personal hand. Then look at how it can work with different subjects. A funky, playful print can be just the right touch for a bright, bold design, or a carefully written poem perfect for a collage piece. Don’t try to judge your penmanship until you play with it in these ways.

Tips And Suggestions:

Use your handwriting to create a border or frame.

If you need a more elegant look, any handwriting looks better in gold!

Mix it up! To get something more playful or funky, mix capital letters in with lower case letters and perhaps even change colors.

Adding dots at the starting and ending points of your lettering’s lines can give a nicely designed look to ordinary printing.

Emphasize a letter or an entire word by highlighting it. Instead of trying to fit a word onto a glassy pebble, you can customize your shape to fit your word.

Take a good look at your writing and emphasize its good points. Does your capital R have a fancy flourish? Try over-sizing it at the beginning of a word.

If you can’t write in a straight line, don’t! Just give your natural tendency to wander a little nudge to bring it out even more.

Try out adding a bit more panache to crossing your T-s and looping your Y-s!

If you don’t like your writing, try imitating someone else’s. While it may not look like what you are attempting, the result may be a nice surprise!

Try writing in your own style, but alter it by writing taller, shorter, stretched, sprawled, or scrunched together.

Heat emboss your writing.

Warm up a little before you write for your card. Loosen up and relax to get a better writing flow.

Choose your words... selecting just the right thought, poem or saying to match your personal writing and stamping style can add a new dimension to your cards.