Excited to finally be able to share this project with you. Say hello to Rare Script, a handwritten custom typeface created for Rare Beauty, the new cosmetic brand by Selena Gomez.
We were commissioned by Established NY to develop a spontaneous, fresh-looking handwritten typeface. The design embraced the imperfections of handwriting and aligned with the vision of the brand: celebrating the imperfect beauty in people (loved that concept!).
Funny fact, this is how my handwriting looks when I try to make it look tidy and relaxed 😁 What do you think about it?
On top of this, almost accidentally we spotted a little tattoo under Selena's ear written with the typeface that we have designed!
Creating Decorata Typeface was perhaps one of the most rewarding things I’ve done so far. Decorata was inspired by one of my lettering pieces. One of the great things about lettering is that it’s unique and created for an specific use. One of the downsides of it, is that those shapes will no longer be used!
I remember creating that lettering for a postcard (it was a client assignment). It was new, and I liked it, I hand’t done anything like this before! However it was used in that ONE postcard that was sold in a few retail stores in Berlin.
Years later, I decided to make better use of those shapes, and started working on the typeface. I expanded the words into an alphabet and started working on each one of the layers. A time later, Decorata was born. Writing the first words with your font is a feeling that is hard to transmit. It’s just pretty awesome.
Nowadays I use Decorata for client projects, but also, other designers are able to use it as well. So, cheers for that.
Thank you Neil from Positype forever, for helping me bring this project to life.
The Lettering Crit - Display Type Special was so much fun and there are so many takeaways to share with you. Everyone was truly engaged with giving feedback to the projects, and I'm sure that the authors of the selected projects Derek Munn, Prateek Bisht, Jamie Otelsberg, and Ana Michel got tons of information to continue working on their projects. If you missed it, here's a replay.
Here are the main takeaways of this session:
1. Finding inspiration in vernacular typography: old signs, old specimen books and graphic material can be a great starting point for a unique typeface (although not the only one). Beware, you'll probably have to redesign/reshape many letterforms to make them suitable to a contemporary eye. That's when your unique perspective plays an important role!
Derek's project is a good example of using and repurposing vernacular typography for a modern typeface.
2. Use your calligraphy: calligraphy as the mother of all letterforms can help you easily stick to a style and achieve consistency within your alphabet. Why? Because the letters will be all essentially "written" by the same hand.
Jamie's project translates her calligraphy into an alphabet, and through that process she keeps consistency all along.
3. Expand your alphabet: find the mother shapes and use them to inform the shape of other letters. Your mother shapes are those that look like a rectangle, a circle or a triangle. For instance, your "O" is the mother shape for your C, Q, and gives you tons of information to draw your D or P. Can you see why? Of course! All these letters share a rounded shape.
4. Consistency: make a couple of strong decisions and try to apply them consistently in all letter shapes. That decision could be making your letters high contrast, or inverting the contrast completely or using bananas to build your letterforms. Everything is possible as long as it's possible on all letters.
Ana's project stands through using one strong decision that applies to all letters. In this case, she's using inverted contrast for all shapes.
5. Design words: move onto setting words with your letters sooner than later. Remember that designing letters is not about the isolated shape itself, but about how well that interacts with all the rest.
6. Mind the gap (spacing): designing letters is not only about the substance (the black part) but also about the space around them. Remember the rule of thumb for finding your ideal spacing—the space within the letters should be similar to the space between the letters.
Prateek's project displays consistency through a consistent slant, contrast, and weight. Also, the spacing is considered as part of the design.
Give it up for Anna, Prateek, Jamie and Derek for their great work! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 I'll be delivering more tips to create typefaces in the next few weeks, and on September 4 I'll be opening registration for Letter&Co. my latest course about display type design. Cannot wait!
The first Lettering Crit session was just over-the-top amazing. I enjoyed it so much that I just want to do this exclusively from now on! Just kidding #notkidding. If you missed it, here's a replay.
This was a collective work. In the session, it was not only me giving comments and feedback on the work, but all attendees participated (that chat was on fire!). I have to say that it wasn't easy to select among hundreds of submissions and so many great pieces of work, but finally, the projects of Ailen Kenny, Caroline Esteves, Darshita Agarwal, Jenn Rothschild, Irene Clua, and Jenny Mercer were selected. They were the lucky ones to receive valuable feedback for their next iterations.
These are some of the main take-aways of the session, good lettering tips:
1. Composition hints: To get your composition right use the North (N), South (S), West (W), East (E) principle. So if the north of your composition is very busy (with swashes or flourishes), find ways to compensate that in the south portion of your composition.
Beautiful script lettering by Ailen Kenny. We suggested a change of shape for letter e.
2. Decorative elements to the rescue: if you happen to have negative spaces (white spaces) within your composition, decorative elements may come handy. Use lines, swirls and flourishes to "cover" those up.
Extreme contrast for Caroline Esteves's work. Perhaps adding some decorative elements to cover up negative space?
3. Watch out with your S: Raise your hand if you ever struggled with an S. Well, I have! 🙋🏻♀️ When drawing an S, focus on the space around rather than in the shape itself. If there's too much space on any of the sides, you might need to adjust the slant or shape of that S.
Helping Darshita Agarwal with that S.
4. Use capital letters and design them all together: if possible, use as many capital letters as possible. Capital letters are normally more expressive and wild, and they will add tons of flavor to your piece. Also, when having multiple on your composition, design them all together, so that they share the same features and have the same complexity.
Solid work by Jenn Rotschild. We suggested some flare for her capital letter A.
5. Confirm that is readable: especially when working on flourished compositions, there's the risk of compromising readability. Double-check with other readers if necessary.
Irene Clua with a beautiful executed piece. It was mentioned that one of the flourishes mike read like a capital E.
6. Solve most of the problems in your sketch: before moving on to the digital drawing, solve all of the problems in your hand sketch. This will make digitization much easier!.
Jenny Mercer solved most of the problems in the hand sketch and continued improving her shapes as she moved on to the digital drawing.
I'll be hosting more sessions in the future, keep your eyes peeled! Have a great weekend.
Drawing letters is an incredibly slow-moving job. This is one of the first things I realized when I started working with lettering full time. Since I used to run a one-woman studio and wanted to make a living from it, I had to come up with a workflow that would allow me to do multiple projects while responding to the working rhythm of agencies and publishing houses (where projects are due yesterday).
I still remember the first time that I received a big commission of lettering, it was for the cover of New Statesman magazine in the UK. I was so excited! This was my first assignment with the potential to have tons of exposure—the magazine has a circulation of 35.000 copies in the UK— and for me to make a great piece for my portfolio.
The art director sent the brief and the exact words to illustrate. I had everything I needed to get started, and so I did. I worked three days straight on this artwork:
By the time I showed the artwork to the art director, the deadline was just one day away. Thank god she liked it because I would not have made it to the deadline if she would have not liked it!
From that point on, I started to rethink my work process. I said to myself that there must be a more effective, less time-consuming process to work on my designs and, at the same time, be able to test ideas with my clients.
Working with sketches.
This is when I started working with sketches. Working with quick sketches is convenient for both the lettering designer and the client, as it allows you to deliver a concept in a short time and confirm if you are both on the same page regarding the direction of the project. If not, it is easy to sketch some new ideas and discuss them with the client.
I once received a commission with a really fast turnaround. Although the deadline was extremely tight, I was interested in the job and decided to take on the commission. Once I got the briefing and cleared some doubts with the art director, I started sketching some ideas right away. A few hours later, I sent a first colored sketch to the client. It looked like this:
The art director got back to me right away: she loved the direction. However, there was a little problem: I had used the wrong text for the lettering! The text I needed to illustrate were actually those three words at the top of my drawing.
For being an artist that works exclusively with text, I had made a huge mistake! After taking a deep breath, I wrote back apologizing and two hours later I was able to deliver a new sketch using the right text. I got positive feedback and could move on to the digital drawing and finalize the work as quickly as possible.
Almost no time was lost considering that, ahem, I had started the project with the completely wrong text! Bottom line: sketching saved that commission, the relationship with the client, and all the future potential commissions that may arise from it.
Sketches: way to go.
Working with sketches has two more benefits. Although you are establishing a lot of essential elements in your first sketch, many of the details will follow later in the process, which keeps the work interesting for you and thrilling for the client. Another benefit is that sketches enable the client to experience the working process; she or he can see the individual steps and influence them.
Additionally, in the digital era, a working process that involves hand-drawn sketches is well appreciated and adds value to your work. Clients will perceive your work as a craft and not only as a job.
Developing a good sketching technique is something that is worthwhile investing time in, not only because it can create a more effective workflow, but also because it can help you achieve more unique results.
I’ll be hosting a FREE masterclass next week. Stay tuned and sign up for my newsletter below to be notified.
According to the our new tradition, on Sunday July 8th, I opened the doors of my studio for the second time. At the main room, old and new artwork were exhibited, including personal projects, commercial work, my book, products, and some sneak peaks of projects that are to come. In the seminar room, we exhibited the work of the 10 international attendees of this year's summer lettering seminar.
Once again, it was a pleasure to welcome designers and letter aficionados and share with them a part of the bulk of work I've done throughout these years.
In its second edition, I hosted a 3 days intensive seminar where attendees designed a piece of lettering from sketch to final color digital artwork. This year we welcomed attendees from France, Hungary, The United States, The Netherlands and Germany.
The seminar consists of theoretical and practical input within sessions of hands-on work. I’m permanently in place to provide guidance and comments to the attendees. Results were exhibited during our yearly open studio in Berlin. Here’s an overview of what happened:
DAY 1
It was 100% analog and all about sketching letters shapes, training our typographic eye and understanding the basics of letter design. I shared my work process and my approach to achieve more personal, unique results.
DAY 2
We polished the hand sketch and got it ready to start digitising. We used Adobe Illustrator to draw letter shapes with anchors points.
In the evening, we had a private guided tour to the Buchstabenmuseum, a museum that collects and exhibits pieces of rescued vernacular lettering pieces from all over Germany.
DAY 3
We continued polishing our vector drawing and some of us incorporated color and texture to the design. We displayed the entire process from hand sketch to digital drawing, and reviewed all projects.
ATTENDANTS INSIGHTS
"It was the most inspiring experience in my carrier. Thanks Martina and her amazing crew."
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"Martina's motivation & knowledge is very fascinating, she is not only a marvellous handlettering artist but also an amazing teacher."
I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be teaching lettering workshop at Type Directors Club in New York next June.
In this hands-on intensive workshop you will drive the process of drawing and refining custom lettering. In this one-day session you will be introduced to effective techniques to create a lettering from scratch. It is ideal for beginners as well as advanced letterers who want to improve their technique. You will walk away from this workshop with a sharper eye when working with typography and with practical tools to improve your own creative work. Read more and book your place.
[button url="https://www.tdc.org/event/create-lettering-martina-flor/" style="white" size="small"] More information & booking [/button]
I believe I’m one of these people with big career turn and moving to Berlin has a lot to do with that. I started to work exclusively as a letter designer more or less at the same time that I moved to the city. Working as a graphic designer and being an art director for 7 years I had of course been doing typography related stuff before. Still, it wasn’t until I moved here that I decided to stop doing any other graphic design work and pursued making a living exclusively from my lettering work.
My first step towards it was to clean up my website of all the things that I had done but I didn’t want to do anymore. My second step was to print new business cards. This was my way to say to the world that I was a letterer.
My first business cards as a letter designer
THE CONTEXT
Berlin is one of the cities with more type designers per square kilometre in the world. Berlin breaths typography: there’s monthly meetings (called Typostammtisch) where the typographic community comes together to discuss typography related topics, there’s a few conferences with a focus on the mater and there’s a vibrant community of designers working in the field. You can even find a museum of Letters (Buchstabenmuseum) that rescues abandoned vernacular signs from the streets from all around Germany.
Vernacular signs are all over the place in Berlin
Traditionally Germany has a focus on formal typography. Topics as readability, legibility and clarity are essential. And these are all things that my work doesn’t necessarily pursue. My work is colourful and expressive, at times is even not readable. It's about conveying an idea and telling a story. For this I use letter shapes that combined with color and texture create a new visual text.
I was truly hesitant whether this typographic community would accept my approach to letter design. Topping all my expectations, this community welcomed my work and ultimately triggered it. Throughout these years living and working in Berlin my work became more colourful, expressful and playful than i's ever been.
THE WORK
When started working commercialy with lettering I quickly realised that I had to improve my workflow. On the first place, to be able to manage multiple projects at the same time. On the second place, to cope with tight deadlines of agencies and publishing houses. My work process is moulded through that and has become more effective with the time.
Throughout this years I have parallel run a few side projects. The biggest one that I started was Lettering vs Calligraphy, where together with calligrapher Giuseppe Salerno we organised an online battle that got a lot of attention from the audience and the media. That was one of the most exciting times of my life. Also, the way this project improved my work showed me for the first time the impact that this sort of endeavours may have in your bulk of work and the sort of commissions you get.
The variety of letters we created together with Giuseppe Salerno.
Some years after that I started Letter Collections where I was designing and sending postcards to friends, colleagues and complete strangers. As a result, I created a collection of 100 postcards where I experimented with several lettering styles that informed my work immensely.
Side projects, commercial work and my teaching has been my main occupations during this years. Thanks to the growing attention towards my work, I have been regularly invited to speak at conferences.
THE TALKS
Speaking about my work and teaching has been one of the most nurturing things I have done so far in my career. It pushed me to organise my ideas, to question my methods and to identify what is important and what is not.
I have the luck to travel often to speak at design and type conferences, and it amazes me every time the fact that I share the stage with people I have admired since I was a young design student. Speaking about my work is just something I love to do and allows me to keep in mind the few things that are essential.
The title and the slides of my presentations about my experience at teaching lettering where made my hand.
TypeCon 2014 was the conference where for the first time I presented a talk exclusively focused on my teaching. I gave a similar talk at AtypI 2014. Breaking down my teaching method into a few clear simple steps that would fit in a 20 minutes presentation made me realise that I had an own personal method, that it was also didactic and certainly effective to achieve personal results. These talks, called after my online clases The Golden Secrets of Lettering first planted the idea of making a book about it in my head. And so I did.
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