Cover Image: Lettering for Absolute Beginners Workbook

Lettering for Absolute Beginners Workbook

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Member Reviews

Thanks to Fox Chapel Publishing the ARC!
I was very impressed by this book. If I had to recommend one for a beginner, it would definitely be it.

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It does have some projects (one a plate for one). In the end, does give space to practice. A few different fonts are shown and are divided into upper and lower case. tools and how to do it in this book. Nice for those who want some font ideas.

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Yes! This was great. I loved learning from this book and it really helped solidify the fact that I just want to do this creative hobby more. 5/5 stars

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I'm really into calligraphy and lettering so when I saw this book in NetGalley I decided to request it. This book focuses on teaching you how to use faux calligraphy. The author teaches you different alphabets/styles of letters to practice. And showcases some projects you can do using this type of calligraphy. Overall it was a good book, I was expecting more variety in the styles of lettering she showed.

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I received this book free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I feel like there were large chunks missing in this books. It gave a quick overview of what faux lettering is, said let’s practice and then skipped to projects. But it never actually talked about how to create the letters.

Really needs some editing or expanding on ideas. Felt more like a rough outline of a book idea.

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Really liked this lettering guide. I am always looking for new, creative ways to make my journals pretty. Easy to use and a great resource.

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This book was very helpful! I do a lot of of hand letter signs on windows at work and I am always looking for books to help me keep things professional looking, fresh and interesting. I loved all the letter practicing pages with diagrams and the tracing pages were very helpful!

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I am an avid hobbyist in mixed media, and I'd love to add hand lettering. Even though I have extensive knowledge about typography, I am terrible at calligraphy, and that's where this book comes in! With simple exercises, the author taught me how to create great-looking fonts with, what she calls, faux calligraphy. To be honest, I don't mind that I now write my sentences not in a proper way; they look a lot better, and if I can do it, anyone can. The only critique I have: The five fonts used in the exercises are all very similar. More diverse types would have made it a much more valuable book.

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A great and informative quick read about hand lettering without learning traditional calligraphy. The author offers great direction in how to do the lettering as well as some really crafty and creative uses for your new found lettering skills, such as gift plates.
I did find the religious content a little misplaced in a book about hand lettering, but overall enjoyed learning some new skills relatively quickly with actionable tasks throughout the book.

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No matter how good (or bad!) at calligraphy you are, everyone can learn something new from this book. Written with clear, concise descriptions, this book demystifies lettering and calligraphy. Some lettering books read like a textbook — you have to already know quite a bit before being able to understand. But the vocabulary and style of writing feel as if a friend is explaining the steps to you. Aside from the quality descriptions, the pictures are beautifully done.

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I have always been interested in lettering, so was excited to see this book was available for review! It is indeed helpful for beginners, and I found the overview in the beginning to be particularly helpful. There were some formatting issues with the electronic version, and I also was not expecting there to be so much religious context.

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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I’m a relative beginner when it comes to brush lettering. I’ve been experimenting over the past few months to find what pens and styles I like the most. I found that this guide was alright for beginners. I feel like it was missing a few things (more focus on base line, waistline etc... instead of a quick mention during bouncy style lettering). I also found that the practice quotes were too focused on bible quotes which doesn’t appeal to me. Overall a decent guide to start, but there are more comprehensive ones.

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I liked this book, especially the practicing sheets, but I think there are some flaws... As the title mention, this is a book for faux calligraphy, drawing letters and then filling in the downstrokes. I always wanted to know how this works because a lot of times you have no idea where you need to thicken it, on which side, but this is never really specified. There are 5 alphabet examples and while they are cute, they are very similar in style. There is enough room for practicing, which I really like, but I didn’t feel like I really learned anything... the examples in the back are great though, and very handy to imitate for beginners. What also bothered me, this book is very Christian, there are Bible verses, quotes and even a bit on Bible journalling. I feel like this should have been specified on the cover.

I received an e-arc from netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

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Lettering is something I am not naturally skilled at, and with the huge trend of artistic bullet journaling (which I've jumped on the bandwagon on), I'm always on the lookout for simple lettering to learn.

I really liked the graphics and clean look and layout of the pages. I thought the book did a great job of explaining how to create faux calligraphy, and tips such as hiding transitions to make your work more natural.

While I would never write in a book like this, I thought the template pages were well laid out and let you practice a variety of techniques, including writing letters from scratch and adding the body. The pages are clean and would be great for tracing with other paper - which is a method I do use!

The five fonts were cute and had options to practice both upper and lower case lettering. Even better there was word practice so you could practice transitioning between letters correctly.

My favourite sections were 'trace & try' and 'trace and frame', which mean you can create your own framed art straight from the book! A clever addition that I've never seen in a lettering book before.

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This year I decided to try lettering again! I studied some calligraphy in my high school graphics class. Cool book with to the point lessons. Pick it up if you’re even a little curious about this art form.

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It's a cute book that teaches you how to write those cute letters! Also very cool that it has the practise sheets so you can draw the letters yourself! Even though it is a rather small book I would think about purchasing it as it will help beginners and the letters are very beautiful!!

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I hope this is just a rough outline of a book and that more content will be added later.
It took me 15 minutes to read this manual on how to hand letter. It is definitely incomplete.

All I learned was to first use a pencil to "draw" some letters. go back and thicken up some lines to make "faux calligraphy", and finally erase the pencil with a big pink eraser "you probably remember from school."

The author says she gets asked in class whether to thicken the inside or outside of a letter and her response pretty much "it depends" There are supposed to be three examples to explain this concept but that is not included in the ARC.

There was mention of a word practice section but it is not in this ARC.

There are no hints on how to make thickening the lines look "smooth".

I was very frustrated reading this book because I didn't learn anything and I really wanted to.

If this ARC gets updated with examples and samples, please include me on the distribution list and I'll be happy to revise my rating

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Hmmm so I don’t know if this was a faulty e-book copy or if it really just isn’t that informative. Based on what I read here are my thoughts.

The parts where she explains all the different writing tools was really thorough and well thought out. This is faux calligraphy which is really cool and what I was looking to learn, however there weren’t any examples or step by step photos to walk you through everything. It was a lot of explaining theory and not a lot of putting those theories into practice. So that said I’ll give it 3 starsz

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I received an electronic review copy from the publishers and it must have been faulty.

The book gives information on what materials to use, but sadly I was missing some guidance in how to actually draw/paint the letters. The project ideas provided showed how to get the bones of the letters done and then flesh them out, but I was missing the "calligraphy" part (which might have been what was hidden in the faulty copy).
Furthermore, most of the project ideas are based on Bible quotes, going so far as to actually draw letters into a Bible. I''m not a religious person, but defacing a book - even to enhance it - is not my cup of tea.

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This book focuses more on ‘faux lettering’, aka writing out what you want to say and adding in the bits that make it look pretty after!
I really like this technique, and I feel like this is much more accessible than trying to learn the ‘proper’ way to do it! There is lots of advice on how to get started, what equipment to use and even some project ideas and tutorials to get you started!
There are LOTS of pages for you to practice on, some quite similar to what you get when you starting school where you can trace and then try it yourself. And there are some where you can try out whole phrases and designs!
My only problem with this book was how religion heavy it was! I imagine it would put slot of people off, as if I had know how many bible quotes and talk of Jesus and God they was, I probably wouldn’t have read it myself!
But if that doesn’t bother you, or it is something you like, then this book is perfect for a beginner lettered!

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