From Concept to Creation: Designing a Word Map Lettering Frame

I was hired for a project to create custom lettering frame for a retiree person at the company I currently work for. I got this job because my boss knew that I been taking lettering courses and I been posting some passion projects on my socials media (@JustJosie_). When he hired me, mentioned if I could add the words below (see image) and created them in handletter style since he wanted to show handwritten form. I said, Absolutely yes.

The image on the left is the reference I had to create this work. I knew the product need to be in a frame size of 10x14 and to be able to hang in the wall, that you can read it well, making visually appealing to look at. I started gathering some inspiration and add it into what we all know is a Moodboard. This is surper helpful for both parties, your client, because this can help them visualized what the end result of the product will look like; the craftmenship that goes in, and lastly you, the artist, cause it helps you as a method of inspiration for your process (also books are great resources).

Once you and your client have a clear understanding of the style and he agrees with the moodboard presented; guess what, is HANDS-ON time, I start sketching (one of my favorite part), my process is very analog at this point, is pen and paper, once I have a clear idea of how many words are in the piece, I break them into categories by the size of the words which helps visualizing the piece.

Once you are happy with your sketches, is time to clean up a bit and get ready to get approval from your client, what I typically do, is to get my ipad with procreate app and trace my sketch here losely so is more presentable to the client instead of those dirty pen and paper sketch.

Client provides feedback, suggestion, so I go in and print out the piece, I recomend printing a physical copy, you can see things that you wont see in your screen, so I highly recommend this step, and it also good to spy on typos cause we are humans. I like to get a color pen and start making adjustments such as spacing, in order to get a good hierachy for the piece meaning creating an easy flow to read the piece, which is one of our most important goal. Make all those adjustment, and is perfect opportunity to add final details in case you want to add some illustrations to the piece, always leave those handmade look, cause is very important to still preserve the handwritting look to it, otherwise people might argue with why dont you use a font.

Once you are happy with the result, then you clean up everything, name your layers in case the client wants a digital copy and present the final result.

Once approved, I moved on to order the canva with the vendor, since I have worked with this vendor before, I know the quality provided by the vendor is outstanding, so I move on abd submit this for print and deliver in person or mail the piece. It is very important for me to show the quality of what is creating by hand (even though we use the digital tool at the very end), but those little imperfections, adds to the piece.

Here are some of the pieces I have done so far and been so happy with the quality of each unique piece. Guess what, I have done a total of 4 pieces now.

Collection of some word map frames