Hand Drawn Type

When I was at Creative Circus for art direction, I took a typography class. I thought it would be fun.

It was interesting...but not fun.

Our perfectionist teacher had us hand-rendering type till the cows came home and each serif that didn't perfectly match the letter before it got a big red circle around it.

Of course, I had few circles. Since I am a teacher-pleasing perfectionist pet.

But I suppose it was useful to some extent. There is something so dang beautiful about hand-rendered type and when a designer incorporates it instead of using the ole list of computer fonts, it makes an illustration sing. I can't believe I haven't incorporated any in my designs thus far, but I promise the summer 2010 line will have it's share!

Here are a few of my fave examples:

{ from The Land of Nod website, 2 illustrations by julia rothman, Alphabet Cards illustrated by Melissa Sweet, Taschen's New York and Rosie Flo's coloring book both at Anthropologie and Amazon }