Let's Make Letters! is a playful and informative workbook that encourages play, creativity, and even making misaktes along the way.
The book features instructional, speculative, and approachable exercises in an effort to build reader's skills, curiosity, and confidence. Creation of handmade letters by providing readers with more than fifty exercises to create their own unique letterforms. Let's Make Letters! includes exercises that range from simple lettering basics to the expressive and experimental - with imaginative prompts and tips to go beyond the margins of the book. Fail! Make ugly letters! Have fun! Designers, artists, scribblers, teachers, and students are encouraged to take up new and familiar tools to draw, depict, and distort letters in original and inventive ways. It's up to the letterer - pen in hand - to complete the book. By enabling letterers to draw, paint, tape, cut, and gluedirectly into its pages, Let's Make Letters! will fill a void in hand-lettering publications.
Review
"Wherever you land on the scale of fun stuff to take your mind off nagging deadlines or a fun way to get really good at something you've always admired in others, [Let's Make Letters!] covers all aspects of drawn thoughts, starting with the foundational methods of script handwriting, such as the Palmer Method [classic business handwriting of yore] and Spencerian script [think: Coca Cola]....You quickly get the idea that there's no limit to what can be done. And how much fun you'll have." Design Arts Daily,
"Kelcey Gray loves letters. Her bright, funny, and forgiving book is filled with ingenious illustrations, geeky technical info, and playful exercises. It's a perfect introduction for newcomers and a deeply delicious dive for folks who work with type but have never really touched it with their own two hands. Relax, get personal, and be yourself. The alphabet can't wait to meet you!" - Ellen Lupton, author of Thinking with Type,
About the Author
Kelcey Gray is an Austin, TX-based graphic designer who spends her time working with words and exploring the possibilities of typography and lettering. She currently teaches design and typography at the University of Texas at Austin.