I was always fascinated with handwritten type but I rarely make it a habit to handdrawn type myself. I also happen to sit next to this girl named Sam in my Type and Design class who has amazing penmanship and usually will draw out her typefaces for a lot of her design projects (I know, I’m jealous). Just for practice, I gave it a shot with an overly cliche word in preparation for another project currently in the works.
My original sketch of the word “Love”
After importing the scanned sketch into Illustrator and using it as a template layer, I redrew my sketch using the pen tool. I also took this opportunity to refine the sketch, fix problem areas, play with widths, and change strokes that I didn’t like.
I made the vectorized word a 3D object, then imported it to Photoshop where I can mess around with the colors to create more interesting effects.