The difference between Calligraphy, Lettering and Type Design
Hi Legend,
My name is Stefan Kunz and I am a lettering artist.
Not a Calligrapher or type designer.
You might be wondering what’s the difference? They all have to do with letters, right?
Well yes, but let me try to illustrate this with the following example.:
THE PIZZA ILLUSTRATION
Everybody loooves Pizza. But there are different ways you can get Pizza.
You can go home, buy the ingredients, and with a recipe create a delicious Pizza.
Or you can buy a finished pizza in a store. Simply put it in the oven and have a crispy Pizza.
Finally, you can go to an Italian Pizzeria, where the Pizza Yolo will spin the dough and create a unique Pizza for you.
Now, all of these options can deliver extremely tasty Pizzas.
THE TYPE DESIGNER
Similarly to the do-it-yourself Pizza. The Type Designer will come up with a font for you to use. He provides all the “ingredients” necessary for you to create your own product.
He designs an entire type set and defines the spacing in between the letters.
If you are a graphic designer you will most likely work with fonts such as Helvetica, Futura, Times New Roman …
All of those fonts are designed by a type designer. With the fonts you can design your own design piece.
THE CALLIGRAPHER
The Calligrapher, is by definition a professional copyist, this may not sound fancy but in the world of handwriting, consistency is extremely difficult and there are only 12 master penman who are considered the best of the best.
Those penman even right for the Pope.
THE HAND LETTERING ARTIST
The last one is the Pizza Yolo. The one who creates on order. Every piece is unique.
The lettering artist gets a request by a client and will write a quote, a word in a very specific style. The created piece will only be used in that specific way.
Chalk walls, window lettering, count as hand lettering. They are only used once.
Which one should you start with?
There is no right answer to this question. All three are different design field.
Yes often times they have some cross overs. I learnt many rules from calligraphy to become better at hand lettering.
When it comes to spacing and kerning I am still learning a lot from type designers.
If you want to start hand lettering this article will help you:
How to start hand lettering – first steps (for beginners)
And keep in mind:
“Create Something Today even if it sucks. ”