1. Applications of Technology Hand Lettering: A Means of Communication

2. As humans, we communicate through several methods related to our 5 senses. In Architecture and Engineering, ideas are often communicated through drawings. The words that often accompany drawings are just as important as the images themselves. Lettering is used on drawings to give dimensions and other pertinent information needed to fully describe an object.

3. The most important characteristics of lettering are legibility and consistency. Why must lettering be neat and legible? So it can be easily read and understood. In these examples, consistency relates to appropriate spacing, strokes being parallel, and letters being formed in the same manner.

4. What if the person you were communicating with didn’t understand what you were saying? Has your message been received? Today, we use the following in most of our daily correspondence. Lol

5. The use of guidelines to control the height and line spacing of hand lettering is essential. We space letters by optically equalizing the areas between the letterforms rather than by mechanically measuring the distance between the extremities of each letter.

6. Determine the range of lettering sizes by judging the distance from which the audience will view the presentation. Keep in mind the audience may read different portions of a presentation (project overviews, diagrams, details, text, etc.) at different distances.

7. Use the following standards as a rule of thumb: Main titles under drawings¼” maximum Subtitles 3/16 ” Normal lettering 3/32 ” Sheet number in title block½” As you work to improve your lettering, do not just practice individual letters but words, phrases, and numbers as well.

8. How else is hand lettering important? Being able to hand letter well becomes very important when correcting drawings. Errors often occur in drawings and are not discovered until the document has been printed multiple times. If a construction document has been created using an architectural font, it is much easier to change the drawing by erasing (or whiteout) and hand lettering the correction.