Skillshare

Digitizing Calligraphy from Sketch to Vector

Name: Digitizing Calligraphy from Sketch to Vector
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.2 (30 reviews)

4.2(30)11k students

Korshub's take

Professional calligraphers now balance two skill sets: beautiful hand-drawn script and digitized calligraphy that works in print and online. This course teaches both by guiding you through a complete project: sketching with purposeful flourishes, calligraphing with a pointed pen, inking with a lightbox, then digitizing and vectorizing in Photoshop and Illustrator.

The focus is on preservation—ensuring your final digital logotype retains the stroke contrast and fine hairlines of the original ink work. Special techniques prevent digitization from sterilizing the hand-drawn charm. By the end, you'll have a refined calligraphic design ready for professional use (logos, book covers, title treatments). A free lettering toolkit (practice sheets, guides, brushes) supports your continued growth.

About this course

In recent years calligraphers have felt an increased demand for two unique skills: polished, custom calligraphy designs and digitized calligraphy that can be used in print and online in the form of logotypes, advertising, title treatments, printed stationery, and beyond. In this course you will learn my favorite techniques for both skills as you are guided through all the steps of creating your own flourished, calligraphic design.

Learning natural, purposeful flourishing techniques is important for any calligrapher or lettering artist, but especially for those who combine script with graphic design, as it is in high demand for calligraphy’s application in logo design, book covers, magazine title treatments, and just about all other forms of hand-drawn script.

What You'll Learn

Sketching. We’ll start with sketching, covering the basic rules of drawing script letters, and examining opportunities to add flourishes. You will learn to recognize the difference between purposeful flourishes — those that enhance a design — and extraneous ones — those that distract and impede legibility.

Adding Flourishes. With a polished sketch in hand, you will then calligraph the design, with emphasis on learning special techniques for calligraphing flourishes.

Ink It. With the help of a lightbox we’ll ink our polished sketch using traditional calligraphy supplies: a pointed pen and black ink.

Digitizing. Then the computer fun starts! We will bring our design into the computer and polish it further in Photoshop, then vectorize it in Illustrator. I’ll teach you some special techniques for making sure your final logotype retains the integrity of the stroke contrast, including the charming imperfections of the fine hairlines, that it had as ink on paper.

What You'll Make
In this class you will design a word or very short phrase in a flourished calligraphic style to be used as a logotype (or any other sort of type treatment). We'll then walk through the digitizing and vectorizing process.

Get my FREE Lettering Toolkit, including practice sheets, lettering guides, and Procreate brushes, at: mollysletteringtoolkit.com.

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➤ More tutorials:

+ My three calligraphy books offer more lessons and inspiration

+ My YouTube channel is full of free, bite-sized tutorials and demonstrations

+ My other Skillshare classes are all about hand lettering, from how to digitize calligraphy and make flourished layouts, to mastering the art of lettering on the iPad.

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+ Tag me in your projects on Instagram: @mollysuberthorpe. I'd love to have a peek at your work!

+ Sign up for my Workshop News Bulletin to stay informed about my upcoming, in-person classes.

+ Visit Calligrafile.com, my massive online resource guide for lettering artists and creative freelancers, with 1,000+ recommended supplies, books, online classes, and helpful links.

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