Simple Methods for Custom Lettering

You might be surprised to learn that you don’t need to know how to hand letter and draw to create rad custom typography. In fact, Brandon Rike – whose star-studded client list includes everyone from Pharrell to Madonna – creates his unique lettering almost exclusively in Illustrator. He’ll show you how its done in Simple Methods for Custom Lettering.

Working with type is a huge part of graphic design and custom letterforms can be applied to just about every project you’ll work on. In this class, you’ll take an in-depth look at type and learn Brandon’s methods for customizing it to fit the project.

You’ll learn about:

Matching the typeface to the mood of your project
Working with color, shape, and form
Customizing letterforms based on existing fonts
Improving your workflow

You’ll learn three methods for creating custom typography and how to differentiate between high and low-quality letterforms. Brandon will also teach his super efficient workflow, so your projects aren’t bogged down during the lettering process.

Both beginners and professionals will learn new ways of working in Adobe Illustrator to produce rockstar-quality custom type.

Lessons

So You Think You Can't Design Custom Lettering?
How to Treat Art as a Job
Setup & Automate a Project
Dive in to the Creative: Brainstorming & Thumbnail Sketches
How To Gain Inspiration
How to Find a Motivator
Manipulate Existing Fonts
Manipulate Existing Fonts: Embellishing
Manipulate Existing Fonts: Adding a Drop Shadow
Illustrate Original Letterforms
Illustrate Original Letterforms: From Sketch to Illustrator
Illustrate Original Letterforms: Create Simple Shapes
Illustrate Original Letterforms: Discover the Pathfinder Palette
Illustrate Original Letterforms: Use the Offset Path Tool
Lettering By Hand
Lettering By Hand: Flare Tip Pen
Lettering By Hand: Sharpie
Lettering By Hand: Brush Pens
Lettering By Hand: Watercolor
Lettering By Hand: Working in Illustrator
Final Words of Advice

Reviews

This was a great class to watch. Extremely informative and fun. It's great to see someone so passionate about they work.
A great class that inspires a lot of confidence and shows off some very simple yet effective techniques to create great lettering.
Totally worth my time! I wasn't expecting Brandon to give such an impactful launch into this course. Brandon really gives you an insight into his life and his real experience as a designer, helping you not with just designing cool things but helping you set your mindset and expectations, pursuing this as a lifestyle and craft. I found lots of little workflow tricks that I will be using immediately. The only downside I found in this course was the speed Brandon teaches some concepts. I had to use the 15s rewind button a lot while taking this course. I know it's because Brandon is used to working fast, but I would have really appreciated a more paced explanation of something. For example, he used Option key a lot during the course of the class while using a Pathfinder function. That was one little thing that never got explained. After looking it up, I found it was for creating a compound shape while cutting the shape. Aside from that, one of the best design courses I've seen yet.