Which Hand Lettering Styles Should You Try?

Who would have thought that social media would bring back old-fashioned handwriting? Trend-setters are experimenting with unique brush strokes, colors, and writing utensils that you can use to improve your journals, planners, scrapbooks, and letters. As for which hand lettering styles you should try, consider these timeless fonts you can adapt to any project.

Master Calligraphy Handwriting

A skill taught to many men and women in China, traditional calligraphy originated during the Shang dynasty and has since evolved into an expanded artform. The font has precise brush strokes and angles as well as parallel letter heights. Today, you can find the style on letterheads, envelopes, and greeting cards. It’s commonly used to make a bold statement.

Markers, brush pens, and dip pens are common for calligraphy. If you prefer traditional pens, choose fountain pens with fine tips. You should hold the pen at an angle and create thin upstrokes and thick downstrokes for each letter. There are eight basic brush strokes to master, and you can use workbooks to aid your practice.

Come Back To Cursive Writing

Also known as script, cursive handwriting is a sophisticated style where most of the letters in a word connect. Cursive hand lettering is best when you need to get ideas down on paper quickly. While you may have learned cursive in grade school (and decided to leave it there), you can combine this hand lettering style with other fonts to create unique letters, scrapbook pages, and journal designs.

Try Handwritten Serif Font

You might be familiar with serif and sans serif fonts from document formatting. Hand lettering in this style is easy and fun, and also looks elegant. Serif is the font that has feet on the letters. It can come in many different variations, such as bold, thin, and italics.

Write in Sans Serif

Serif refers to the strokes added to the ends of letters. As the font name implies, sans serif font doesn’t have the additional strokes. Some people think this style looks cleaner. Concentration is still required, though, to execute drawing parallel lines correctly. Like serif, there are many different variations of sans serif, such as bubble and block lettering.

You may want to experiment with all these fonts before starting an actual project. Writing in your journal or sending notes to friends is a great way to practice and determine which hand lettering style you should try. You’ll impress your friends and family with projects that you’ve created yourself without the aid of a printer.

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