Hi, guys! I recently received an ask from @sunny-bunnies about my handwriting and headers! I thought my headers were more interesting (I’ll probably do a handwriting tag eventually haha), and I have a lot that I use so this post would get way long if I did both :)
Anyway, I’m going to go through all of the headers that I use regularly! they’re pictured above with and without shadows as a tl;dr.
monoline: this style is pretty popular right now and is also my current favorite! basically, it’s cursive, but uneven- whenever a letter ends in a downstroke, I extend it a little below where it would usually be and also vary the line on which the letters “sit.” The most important tip for this style is to keep stroke width and letter size the same, so that the unevenness looks intentional and not sloppy.
lowercase: I like to use this one as a subheading! it looks much better in the shadow version but basically you write in lowercase print as neatly as you can and hope for the best.
uppercase: This one can be used virtually anywhere! It’s pretty much writing in all caps; I prefer to stretch it vertically! (If you do this, make sure your letters are vertically centered in the same place! ex. the middle line on the E can go high, low, or in the middle, but it should also match where the bump of a P ends.)
faux calligraphy: (forgive me running out of space on this one oops) sort of like monoline (you can do the cursive evenly, like above, or unevenly), but after you write, go back in and thicken the downstrokes. This is much easier than regular calligraphy if you a. don’t feel confident with your calligraphy or b. don’t own brush pens!
serif 1: this one’s cute and kinda typewriter-ish! just print your letters and add serifs (little mini dashes) to the ends of lines. boom! you’re done. I like to look up a typewriter font to have a reference for the serif length and placement, but tbh it looks pretty good even if you wing it.
serif 2: serif 1 but adding to vertical strokes (note that these are not the same as the downstrokes used in faux calligraphy!) I based this style off of times new roman if you need a reference. A warning about serifs: shadows are a pain to do so if you choose to do a shadow + serif, make sure your header is 10 or fewer letters (you’ll thank me later.)
two-tone: take your faux calligraphy (this works better if you have thicker strokes), draw an imaginary line down the middle, and use a darker color to color over the top or bottom (I favor the bottom but it’s a matter of personal preference!) Layering colors (as opposed to just making each half the letter one color) has 2 benefits: 1. no guesswork in trying to match up halves, and 2. the colors look more cohesive! You can also try to blend the colors together to make a gradient (lay down more of the darker color and blend it upward with the lighter one!)
big & small: uppercase, but instead of adding shadows, add mini cursive letters to the centers of the colored letters. Make sure to connect it all together!
highlighted caps: A classic and perfect if you’re in a rush or doing subheaders. just write in all caps and highlight over it. voilá!
color shadow: I would definitely recommend doing this in a larger space than the one I left myself (check out this post to see it done less sloppily) but the idea is to do faux calligraphy with the black pen and the shadow with your colored pen or highlighter! (here I would generally recommend a gel pen or felt, fine-tipped marker but obviously I didn’t follow either of my own tips so make of that what you will)
a note on shadows: So I’ve mentioned shadows a couple times. Unless you want to make your life hard, do the shadows after the main body of the letter. There are just 3 basic rules I follow here! 1. pick 2 adjacent directions to do the shadows in (above, I picked down and right but you can also pick down and left or, if you’re feeling creative, up and left or right.) 2. For every line, one side should be in shadow. this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule but it’s pretty good to follow in general. 3. Choose a primary and secondary direction! For example, I picked down and right, correct? But if I have a capital A (see “uppercase”) I need to pick between a down/left shadow and an up/right shadow. Since I picked right as my primary direction, I choose the up/right side! This is basically an extension of rule 2 but it took me a while to figure out so I thought it should be included.
Sorry! this post went a lot longer than I had intended, but hopefully it was informative! P.S. if you like my posts, maybe you’d also like my new studygram!
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