Lettering

Calligraphy is based on penmanship; it’s essentially "writing letters." Lettering, on the other hand, is based on draftsmanship, i.e. "drawing letters." Lettering can be confused with similar terms, such as calligraphy or typography. Calligraphy is known as a more rigid process, that requires learning the formal shapes of letters and often combining thick downstrokes with thin upstrokes. This style of writing is generally created with dip pens and inks. Some calligraphers and hand-letterers say that calligraphy created with brush pens becomes lettering or faux-calligraphy, but others believe that the approach used to create the letters is more important than the tools used to do so. Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spacing, and spaces between pairs of letters. Part of the reason why these misconceptions are common is that some font shops categorize their fonts as "hand-lettered", "illustrated" or "calligraphy". Said fonts can begin with a hand-lettered alphabet that is then digitized and turned into a repeatable system. This identifies them as type design rather than lettering. One particular lettering website defines the three terms as follows: Lettering is the art of drawing letters, calligraphy is the art of writing letters and is related to the idea of penmanship, and typography is a repeated system of letters or the art of arranging type.

* Many textbooks on lettering or books of example alphabets were published in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Those linked below are free to read at archive.org. * * * • (sampler)