This post may contain affiliate links.

I was always so jealous of people with awesome handwriting skills. Today, you can’t open Instagram or Pinterest without seeing beautiful handwritten quotes. I really wanted to learn this myself, but it’s difficult to start if you don’t have any guidance.

Getting started with Hand Lettering 

At a creative fair, I noticed an exhibition stand with several hand lettering materials. The book “Hand Lettering, how it’s done”, written by Karin Luttenberg immediately drew my attention. It’s just the right size and has an amazing cover with lots of hand lettering examples. It’s available in English and Dutch. Because I know more people have the same “how to start” issues, here’s my opinion, my review.

Supplies

The book starts with an overview of the supplies she uses. I got the Pigma Micron fine liners. I purchased them at the same stand where I bought the book. These fine liners will not bleed on most kind of papers. Of course, you can start with any pen or marker. My advice would be to just check if you even like hand lettering before you go and purchase a lot of pens or markers.

Karin pretty much covers every topic in her book. After the first explanation of the supplies, she shows you where she gets her inspiration. My favorite one is getting inspired by song and movie quotes. I love music and movies and I’m known to talk in movie quotes. Normally a pretty useless gift to have, but now it finally proves to be useful!

Content Hand lettering how it’s done!

The most important part of Hand lettering, the letters, are covered extensively. There are several fonts shown and you can pick one you like, to start practicing. Not only will she show, how you can write the letters, but also composition, depth and shading will be discussed. In other words, how to bring some life in the letters.

In the end, she shows a couple of examples on how to use hand lettering in your daily life, for example by creating a gift tag or pimping a notebook

Workbook Hand lettering how it’s done (only in Dutch)

This was a really good book to get inspired. But I was so happy when I discovered the workbook!

I didn’t do all the practices in the book in a row, but I just kept picking exercises I liked. (there are a lot of those..) 

Karin has created several kinds of creative exercises. A lot of these are focused on fonts of course. 

There are also doodles you can decorate after she gives you some examples. 

If you’re worried (like I was) to mess up any of the exercises in the book, just copy them and try it as often as you like!

Finally useful and fun hand lettering books!

This workbook was just the thing I needed, that extra guidance I required. All in all, you can’t go wrong with these books. But it was the workbook that really got me practicing. If you’re only able to buy one, buy the workbook first. It really gets you going, and before you know it, you will be making cute quotes and cards!

Do you want to see more? Karin Luttenberg sells these books and other products like paper or cards on Paperfuel.nl

What do you love about hand lettering?

Jessica