PRIMARY TOOLS & MATERIALS:
PENCIL, ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR

Additional Tools & Materials: camera, scanner, Adobe Photoshop

This first hybrid type entry is inspired by David Foster's design "Curve Handler" for the exhibition I'd Letterpress the Shit out of That. When I found Foster's work, I was struck by the combination of his hand lettered phrase with the vector handles from Illustrator included in the final letterpress print. It perfectly demonstrated my vision of a hybrid letterform: one that showed in its form evidence of analog and digital construction. 

For this letter 'e,' I began with a hand drawn pencil sketch, took a photo of it, opened it in Illustrator, then traced it with the pen tool. To capture the pen tool handles, I selected all points then took a screenshot of the window. 

It's best practice when vectorizing hand-drawn letters to keep all handles at 90 or 45 degrees, which makes the letter easier to manipulate but more difficult to render. It's a lettering artist's way to "show their work." I'm grateful to Bob Ewing and Ian Barnard who taught me this method earlier this year at Creative South during their workshop, "Hand Lettering and the Vector Machine."