When you create a Bullet Journal, you often dream of it filled with pretty drawings, full of beautiful colors.
And often, as we all can’t be good at drawing, our BuJo unfortunately looks like this:
This was my case at first, when I started my first Bullet Journal. As for my talents as a creative artist, I won’t even talk about them, they’re so pathetic.
So I had to work around the problem by trying to imagine how my Bullet Journal would look a little prettier. And that’s how I discovered Lettering.
Hand Lettering
What is lettering? Well, it’s a kind of art specialized in drawing letters in different colors or styles.
In fact, it goes even a little further than that… On a different blog I found the difference between typography, calligraphy and lettering.
Typography is the repeated arrangement of letters appearing on a surface or screen using pre-built, prefabricated or pre-designed characters. Typefaces and fonts are a good example.
Calligraphy is writing letters, usually in the form of a single stroke with varying width artistically. For calligraphy, we often use tools such as quill, dip pen, ink brush, fountain pen, parallel pen, felt pen.
Finally, lettering is about drawing the letters in digital or non-digital medium. Each unique letter is drawn one after the other, often decorated with pretty ornaments. If we do lettering in a non-digital medium or by hand it is referred to as hand lettering.
Many times these terms are used interchangeably but there are minor technical differences.
My inspirations for lettering
Lettering is finally the right solution to brighten up your Bullet Journal when you are not good at graphic art.
For my part, I’m still starting, but with perseverance and training, I’m sure I can do some pretty things.
And then there are so many bloggers and inspiring YouTube artists in this field.
The first tutorial I used was Stephen Bradbury’s (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVvcyoY6dBJA2jasVk6lHtw). I found his video on You Tube and I think it’s really well done. Basically, Stephen explains the basics of lettering.
In fact, he has devoted a whole playlist on his channel to lettering for beginners.
Another You Tube channel that I like to train for lettering is the ApuntoC channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCccgAS15TOAYDzkNuBzHe3A). You will not find a tutorial per se, but dozens of really inspiring videos.
The videos are in Italian, but everything is perfectly shown so don’t panic. You will understand everything.
Another channel I love, in English this time, is Lhey Ralston’s (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcEvJKAjVAlkjcfXKk9AlQA). She also explains all the lettering techniques very well. I learned a lot from watching her videos. But I still need a little practice before I can reach this level. This will help to make your Bullet Journal look prettier.
