There’s been quite some time since I promised a friend to let him know about the resources I used and how I started working online.
7 years ago, when I decided I wanted to work as an independent artist I had no idea how would I do this, or what exactly I wanted to do. All I knew is that I loved illustration and letters. I studied logo design and worked with logos for a while, but I felt I wanted to go one step further, so I started searching for art classes. I was excited when I found Skillshare. The platform offers a large variety of art classes, which lead to the most important breakthrough for me: I discovered lettering! So, if you are looking for illustration, lettering and photography classes I definitely recommend Skillshare. All the resources I’ve used are listed below:
The best Skillshare lettering classes:
- Hand Lettering Essentials for Beginners – Mary Kate McDevitt
- Hand Lettering: Add Digital Color and Texture for Final Polish – Mary Kate McDevitt
- Vintage Hand-Lettering: Styling Phrases for Timeless Appeal – Mary Kate McDevitt
- Designing Hand Lettering Systems: From Single Motif to Cohesive Project – Mary Kate McDevitt
- Hand Lettering Techniques: 5 Ways to Better Work – Mary Kate McDevitt
- The Golden Secrets of Script Lettering: Find Inspiration In Your Handwriting – Martina Flor
- Storytelling Through Lettering: Exploring Different Styles – Martina Flor
- Lettering for Designers: One Drop Cap Letterform at a Time – Jessica Hische
- Mastering iPad Lettering with Procreate 4 – Molly Suber Thorpe
Recently I discovered CreativeLive where I found 2 great classes for every artist:
- Make Things Make Money: The Business of Illustration and Lettering
- Become a Working Artist
I would also recommend CreativeLive for art classes, especially for photography.
Sites where you can learn history, basic rules of typography:
www.cartridgesave.co.uk/news/typography-resources (Thank you LouAnne for this suggestion)
www.uprinting.com/all-about-fonts-and-typography-in-printing.html (Thank you Mrs. Grace Coleman and Megan for the suggestion)
My precious book collection for lettering and illustration:
- “The Golden Secrets of Lettering”, Martina Flor
- “In progress”, Jessica Hische
- “Scripts – Elegant Lettering from Designs Golden Age”, Steven Heller & Louise Filli
- “House Industries Lettering Manual”, Ken Barber
- “Modern calligraphy”, Molly Suber Thrope
- “Mastering modern calligraphy”, Molly Suber Thrope
- “Imagine a forest”, Dinara Mirtalipova
- “Little book of Lettering”, Emily Gregory
- “The calligrapher’s business handbook”, Molly Suber Thrope
- “Drawing type”, Alex Fowkes
The next best thing for every artist who wants to work online, is social media platforms, where you can upload your portfolio, share free content, follow great artists and learn from their work. An excellent way for people to know you, is to share an artwork for free thought these platforms. For example, create an illustration or a pattern or take a photo and share it as desktop wallpaper or share your first hand made font for free.
Tumblr, Behance, Dribbble, Pinterest,: Social platforms for artists.
Unsplash: A great platform for photographers where they can share their photos for free.
Good luck in everything you do and lots of inspiration to you!