Handlettering

I’ve hand-lettered professionally my entire career. Not to be confused with calligraphy, as used on invitations and such, but for commercial use, usually one or a few words worked into ad headlines, album covers, logos, slogans, etc.

Lately I’ve become more and more interested in Spencerian handwriting, inspired by the beautiful work of Platt Rogers Spencer (1800-1864) a calligraphy and penmanship teacher. You may have seen the same style calligraphy used as illustrations. I found a beautiful spencerian bird illustration in a rare advertising art book in my collection. It was the perfect style for using in the design of the WiliBleu website, (work-in-progress, I’ll be sure to post when it’s up and running!) and coordinating Etsy banner.

I ordered a 9-lesson Spencerian Penmanship course and received it in the mail just the other day. ’Found a new-fangled calligraphy pen with refill cartridges as I have no patience for ink dripping from bottle to paper. I’ll let you know how that goes, but please, for now, no wedding invitation envelope requests, ok-

On a related note, I found a little box I had written on a few years back while trying out a whimsical hand lettering, and located my journal practice page entry. It’s kind of fun to write on stuff.