Draw Your Own Fonts

“I am very much down to earth, just not this earth“, says this little art journal page which I made for my fashion themed art journal. The quote is from a famous fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. I kind of relate to his quotes and predict that my art journal will be full of them! Namely, I have found creating lettering so much fun! These two great books have inspired me for that.

The books are:
1) Draw Your Own Fonts (also with a name Draw Your own Alphabets) by Tony Seddon
2) Creative Lettering by Jenny Doh

Both of these books try to bridge the gab between graphic designers and art journalers. If you want simple exercises and skeleton like starting points, I would recommend Tony Seddon’s book.

Draw Your Own Alphabets introduces each font as a simple concept which you can alter easily. It is also a workbook where you can practice drawing the fonts. I find this book easy and practical and every skeleton inspires me to create my own version of it. Clearly, if you are a graphic designer wanting to learn how to create elegant fonts, this book is not the best for you. But if you are an art journaler or card maker who wants to have fun with lettering, this book is just what you need to get started.

All the fonts shown in the art journal page are based on Draw Your Own Alphabets.

Another book that I have and like is Creative Lettering. It introduces 16 artists who show their way to use alphabets. The artists have very different styles from each other, which is great and which really inspires to use alphabets in different ways.

Creative Lettering is more beautiful than the previous one and it is still pretty easy to pick ideas from it. I am quite picky when purchasing books but these two I can warmly recommend!

(If you wondered how did I made the background of the page, it is explained in the blog post a while ago.)