My Early Lettering Years

I've been on a mission to track down some of my biggest design influences throughout my life. I'm looking for the resources I grew up with, or used that helped shape my artwork or design work. All the stuff I looked and and kept around me before I knew about design, before I went to school, and before I saw work of famous designers.

When I was about 11 or 12, I remember having this book, The Do-It-Yourself Lettering Book. This was my favorite book at the time, I carried it around EVERYWHERE. Surprisingly, it is still in decent shape and well preserved. I view this book now as my early introduction to lettering and the beginning of my lettering obsession. I can remember drawing just about everything inside of this book, and viewed every project, poster, or report as a chance to do some unique lettering. If only I had some of those reports! (Specifically, a poster about Rhode Island I made in the Second Grade. I loved RI, so much that I started a mini singing group called Rhode Island Rats with my friend Laura. The only words to our song was, Rhode Island.)

Anyway, in high school, my notebooks and book covers were completely covered in lettering. Mostly bands that I liked (which are probably embarrassing to mention now :) ). Each word was written in a different way and were probably 100% inspired by this book. This style of lettering still shows up in my meeting notes

A few pages from The Do-It-Yourself Lettering Book: