Creating Stunning Lettering Layouts with The Grid Builder

the first thing we do is just write out the quote in your own normal handwriting we're not going to worry about it for a moment this is like there's a quite a few steps before we actually get into actually designing our letters the layout comes first so if first I'm going to do is write out just in caps the phrase we're going to be doing and so the first thing that I do is draw boxes around my letters or around the words so it gives me an idea in my head how you know what shapes I'm working with because it's easier for your brain to work out those shapes rather than the words first okay so that's the first stage I do so I can just I've got these these squares these rectangles in mind and then the second thing I do is work out what our primary what our secondary and what filler words so in the case of this the filler word will just be there other filler words are like and and isn't the two and stuff like that so things are just just going between they're not really have matched prominence so yeah so they're he's gonna go in the filler word and then for like secondary word I'm putting in a deep design cuts because all suits about the community that's that's the focus so design cuts will go here and then community and rocks goes in the priority so just now to give those a little bit more prominence than the secondary they're both important but one you know when you're doing you just have to think what's going to be the main thing that you want people to focus on first and they're just flicking through it yeah so once we once we've done that it's quite easy stage you know it doesn't take much there's no it's just all going through the motions that happens on all of the stuff I do when I'm doing a letter where I know I come to doing then I come to laying out roughly how I want my layout look so the first thing I do I'll do a quick example over here is I draw I draw just a line down my page that's my center line that I can sort of hang my rectangles off and then I think okay my my first weddings there it's not very big I know the shape of it and I only keep that small at the top then I design cuts which is a slight bigger rectangle and both those words are sort of similar in importance and they're both even though they're different shapes they've both got the same sort of weight and then we've got community and the things with the word community it's quite quite a big word site there's a there's a level to how big like you make it because it's quite it's nine letters I think and then rocks is gonna be down a bit quite big down the bottom here and so that's one layout I I could change my mind you know on this one here I've done it so I'd broken up design cuts into two rectangles the thing is you just want to keep that sort of symmetry but I don't think that that sort works as well as it having its tag to say we're more jority you just sort of like looking like here we sort of have like it we've got sort of like a diamond shape so rather than it being like a like a pyramid with really wide on the bottom going to really narrow I'm sort of trying to keep think about that sort of like either diamonds or oval shape so next I go on to sort of tweaking those shapes and this is where I have grid builder in mines because I i I've gone through the looking at brushes and I know which ones are I've got available so I know I can just quickly sketch out like I know I have this one that's of curves around so I'm going to put that in there and then having one which is sort of feature widescreen there I can't remember the exact names but I know the shapes and that comes in really handy because I could start to give the piece a bit more a bit more pop if you're going a bit more rather than just being static each other these get more interaction with each letter I think or maybe I can give give that a curve on it as well and then I start going through trying out some different one so I can meet the bowtie going on there on the left well yeah the bait I ever quite log grid like my favorites my usual time I'd say you know I'm trying here I'm trying a different one where it's curved the other way rather than curve on top so it's just really you just starting rough that's what we did rough and small just going through as many layouts as you can and once you're happy with that well what's I'm happy with it by then you know I've done another one here just still tweaking and then i roughly fill in those spaces with the letters I've got so you know I just I'm not giving them away my letters I might give them a bit of weight here that my kajori them they're just a skeleton all the letters to see how they fit in you know where the community is too squashed in or it's fine like that I then decided I start to give it like a ribbon like look because in the set there's a ribbon one as well so that seems to work quite well and also something you need to do as well is think about how many letters great so when you are laying out letters in in the grids like write out the words I've got design and count letters I've got one two three four a six so you put six there know where the middle of those letters are and then you can know that I'm gonna do like a des outside idea and the other side same with communities nine so I know that the middle is gonna because it's an odd number but then I've got at two ends which are quite wide I know I'm going to do Co em on one side and then unit-1 on the other side so that just helps your helps you to lay it out quickly what we're doing it quickly going through these motions to try and get stuff down to see how it's working we don't spend too much time on it in case it's not working we'd only go away down that road and so your next stage is just to give give my letters a little bit more weight and a bit more style to them still keeping it quite rough like deciding on whether I'm gonna give like rock rocks I want to give it a bit of a shadow so I give that a really rough thing to see what that looks like and know a few bits coming over here then also just sort of thing oh maybe Kiwis could be in scripts but for me it doesn't seem to work in terms of light this seems quite big and the Y is a minute sort of doesn't hang with this symmetry think of this one we might do for other ones and plus with with this sort of class I didn't want it to be to complicate it so going to sticks or uppercase sans-serif mainly look so once I've got two about this stage you know I might do it might be a few more designs as I'm trying to work it out well get the iPad get procreate what's quite good at procreate rather than just going to the camera app take a photo go to the Gary than you over the gallery is that once you've set up your document this document here and I have to zoom if you go to the Settings tab and click on add you can then take a photo there we go so I've taken a photo and then I'll the button there I can click use photo and that will pop it into the document and then I can then lower the opacity down so it's just roughly in the background so I can get my get my layout looking good so there we've got our rough design you know look when you zoom in it looks really rough but don't worry don't worry this is why group builder helps because it helps to like refine all those lines so the first thing I do is find my pencil Harris I set up a new layer and I used it because I'm giving using why I use my favorite combination of like pink and blue bridge a lot of the moment to be the guidelines so that I can differentiate them from why I'm doing so the first thing I do is just with just like the basic monoline click the brush because I just want a straight line is to draw a line from top to bottom and then if I don't a my pen off the thing and then hold my finger on there or create a straight line so I've got my finger on that thing on the thing okay and that can create a straight line down my canvas and that's where I'm gonna hang all my grids off because they've got like a center line in every grid on grid builder so I can hang all those off so next thing I do is create a new layer and then start from the top down and the first thing I'm gonna do is this banner what's called banner and that's gonna be at the top here so tap that on there actually bring down the size a bit and that's going to go up there at the top next I create another layer because I'm now going to do the desert words uh design for that I'm going to use one called bridge so I'll place that and then just get my click on the transform tool to that arrow at the top and then position that because it's got these guides in the center little Mark's I know where I'm gonna I know where to position it keep it central and actually if you find you want to extend the top of the grid obviously we made them to a set size but if you want like my design goes a bit taller than that you can click and lay that on down create a new layer add a block and that can just extends that grid up a bit say don't be defined by just the one sweet you know giving you can combine combine one or two together and make it a little bit bigger mm-hmm so so that's where my design guy whose name so hide the sketch I'm just left with because I got my always had my book next to me so I'm sort of checking what I'm doing and then what I do next is add I'm going to bring in a bit of a letter builder which is why all the product we've got so I change over to a blue color create a new layer and I can tell roughly that they're going to be needing the condensed one but it's not a particularly wide space so I click on condensed so you can you just put one grid down so each of these grades this makes up every letter the alphabet there's a guide that comes with the Downloads route but what it does for me is help me to quickly get out a simple sans-serif style then I can add on top of it all the sort of fanciness change it to serif maybe change the weight change may be given in line a bevel 3d whoever one what it does is go through the process of creating letters quicker so I haven't what time to spend to use a made-up word fancy buying it so that should be worth usually like say but you can even just tap once or if you draw a line so I'm gonna draw a line of six and keep keeping my pen held on the screen and then holding my finger down I can create a line which I can expand or contract and adjust the spacing which really helps so I bring it in a bit so we've got our our grids they've got our word designs we've got six letters then we just position it in into this is where less of a lot of fits into the grids but you have to do a little bit tweaking to do that I wish it could be automatic because I would save you more time but maybe next product yeah so I get it i roughly get it to the size I need it to like in terms of a rectangle and then going to the bottom I click war bounce mesh which are these two ones here so the far-right tab and then the far left option button and that gives me lots of points it gives me 16 points and then I can just tweak those to fit it to that curve there and then once you've done that just click on the arrow at the top and then you're left with the grid in that shape there we go amazing say and the same thing happens with the rest then if they've got that turn that off so here are ones I've made earlier so I've done my four cuts that I'm our community and all the rocks at the bottom there so that is my layout the composition has been made I still might tweak if it'd only be small tweaks by now because I'm quite happy with how that layout looks now I can focus all my attention on how the letters look say what I do first is create a new layer get a white color today I'm gonna be using my chalk dust brushes so gives me they're all all from source from genuine chalk that I made in my studio that is a lie I use one called sketchy which is just what I used to get the rough letters down so I would flatten this image of the layouts I'm happy with out everything is and then I can reduce that nasty that's just in the background and the same with the left to go those flatten and then I just reduce the opacity so I can see it but it's it's good in a little bit so it's easier for me to go over it a rough layout a bit a bit like this one in my trying to redraw this one down here on the screen another quick tip so I do this and this is all one one layer I can i can't alter it as well if I need to say with the selection tool the s at the top it's just bring them all in a bit actually I might move some of these letters just nearer to it yeah here's another one I made earlier so that's me just going through that same process you know with everything I've roughly put it in an audition and so I once I've done that I get I can now I'm happy with you spacing it's already looking pretty cool there's to say I'm so happy with how it's looking so what I can do now is turn off groov build a letter builder we've got this in place and now I can reduce so this theme running where I build I reduce go over it so now I just reduce that down so it's sort of you know no gray lever color you're using and this is going to be the basis - for my my lettering on it so I'd create a new layer and this is where I create a new layer every piece say I do allow for the layer for design left cuts blah blah so now I had more freedom to move stuff around I'd starting a new layer I'm going to use my favorite one actually so what Stefan contributed from my brush pack so as either Stefan's tool brush of seven Stefan's chalk script either one of those I used to start because a quite quite sharp and I've a bit more control over them you know the outline roughing and then maybe you put one to that you know you put on that shirt and the shirt could be you know maybe you want some syrups you know at the top I mentioned shoes so they could be the surface at the bottom for you might want to tie so you put you know lying down your letter you know it's just adding adding elements to it so I'll bring it up say but for this one I'm going to go for like a gradient going up say a little stipple shaver and I'm gonna just sort of start off heavy and then it's all fades off nice I'm going to make it 3d so what I'm going to do is duplicate that layer and then I'm going to reduce it either side and bring it down to the depth I want it and then reduce the opacity of that right down so just got a line to where I can work to create a new layer so this is why you know create nodes having a many layers is great thing to do and then wanna do is actually a really easily eraser as a brush because it gives a gives a good and get some good sort of shading going on here so all I'm going to do is just fill out the condos messes here's the one I did earlier of amazing they're popular and then I would build up and have design I've done a similar thing to what I've done rocks but the type treatment is just quite simple in terms of that so it doesn't it doesn't easily detract and then cuts I just killed a thing and that when I raise there and then a sort of simple shadow to it it just gives this stuff a bit more depth and then you know community I've just kept quite simple so I just you know filled in those those I just traced over the letters are already done roughly and then just started to usually arrays is just the snot and them up a bit to make sure they're all looking consistent you know you see that's sort of white it's the same across the say and also no because of lack cuz I'd letter letter builder you haven't got that problem while you said some of you Alice you can't see any little gum retie over yeah squishy yeah with with cleaning up the letters and making them more refined to you zoom in normally assume it's two arrays and that kind of thing yeah say lemme diecuts cuz that's quite small word say I would so I start doing you know I go around the outline so yeah I'll do that and then I'll just you know make sure especially we like letter s because you just want to make sure it's not looking like it's gonna fall over so you might need to refine the sides and stuff like that you know the teeth looking bit fat but as you've done in a minute or two celibacy yeah so really refined and refined for say it's just looking and saying okay is that area layer and see matching view is it matching you matching the city matching yes and just making sure that it always it's not like one way you know because if there's more way it's just like ship anyway looks like it's tipping or look at our place and then we've got rocks the bottom there and I've added a a mask to the community think it gives this sort of shadow in the background it's like and yeah it's something I'm trying to get more into you know because is adding a bit more illustration around my lettering for interest so like I think you can see I've got this like chalk sprinkler it's called and I'll just put that around the edges and then raised around it so it's like a dark area yeah and some so it's a technique used in chalk letter you know - loitering - helps things stand out so you saw make it slightly like a ruffed of like white go around so then it makes it stand out and then adding some sort of dots this is supposed to represent like community members and then just some light you know it's all starburst in style bits and then I was like oh maybe I can be like little illustration of light you know so I saw this light this is like more cartoony thing on Pinterest yeah what about that with a pencil going through you know the sort of you know rock on yes I am DC pencil where I love the details but that was amazing though I know it's just me but in the comments let's give it up for ian's for that demonstration because damn every single time I'm blown away

Channel: Design Cuts

Views: 6,486

Keywords: Graphic design podcast, Design, Podcast, Graphic design, Graphic designer, Useful information for graphic designers, Graphic designers at work, tom ross, tom ross design cuts, graphic design resources, graphic design interview questions and answers, graphic design interview, graphic design success, instagram success, freelance graphic artist, hand lettering, lettering, ian barnard, ian barnard procreate, ian barnard grid builder, grid builder, procreate lettering, procreate

Id: ZMnF88oIqGw

Length: 23min 31sec (1411 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 11 2020