Post pobrano z: The Basics of Drawing Type & Creating Your Own Handwritten Font

Ever wanted to give your digital layouts and designs a truly personal touch? In this tutorial we’ll look at how you can create a font from your own handwriting, for use on your computer. 

The tutorial will be split into three parts. Firstly, we’ll look at the basics of drawing a typeface. Then, once we’re warmed up, we’ll see how you can optimise your handwriting to ensure high quality and versatility. And lastly, we’ll analyse some different methods for getting your font onto the computer and converting your hand-drawn letters into a digital font.

1. Practice Drawing Type

What you’ll need for the first part of this tutorial:

• drawing paper (white)
• sharpened HB or 1H pencil
• ruler with millimetre measurements

You probably write scribbled notes or lists every day, but you’re rarely conscious of your handwriting. When you suddenly become very aware of your own handwriting, it can start to look unnatural.

You should first get into a more natural mode of writing. I find the best way to do this is to practice drawing a typeface. This is also really useful as it makes you more aware of the key characteristics of a typeface, and makes you more able to recognise common features (consistencies) between different characters within a typeface. This will prove useful when we start to refine our own handwritten characters, and optimise them for digitisation.

Step 1

Lay your ruler flat across the page, at a horizontal angle, as straight as you can make it. Take your sharpened pencil and, pressing down moderately hard, draw a line above the top edge of the ruler. 

If your ruler is a standardised 30 mm-wide ruler, you can keep the ruler in place, and draw a second line along the bottom edge of the ruler. This has the benefit of ensuring both lines are perfectly parallel. Otherwise, simply create two horizontal lines, 30 mm apart. The lower line represents the Baseline, and the top line is the Cap Height. 

Mark out the top 10 mm third of the total height between the lines and draw a third horizontal line with your ruler and pencil, pressing down more lightly to make a slightly fainter line. This line represents the x-height. Swot up on your typography terms, such as x-height and baseline, in my article on The A to Z of Typography.

Step 2

You can repeat the sequence of lines, using the same measurements from Step 1, to create a page filled with lines. This is your own writing grid, on which you can practice drawing typefaces.

Step 3

Open a software program where you can easily edit text, such as Adobe InDesign, or even Microsoft Word or Pages. 

Select a classic Serif typeface, such as Adobe Caslon Pro, which is shown here, or Garamond. To practice drawing a typeface it’s best to pick a serif to draw at first, as sans serif typefaces have more subtle features, and can be more tricky to draw accurately if you’re a beginner.

Type the following characters: ‘H n o y’, with a space between each. These are good characters to pick, as they display a range of different features: two vertical stems and a crossbar on the ‘H’, an aperture and serifs on the ‘n’, a fully enclosed counter on the ‘o’, and a sweeping descender and diagonal arms on the lowercase ‘y’.

If you’re working in InDesign you can also switch on the baseline grid (View > Grids & Guides > Show Baseline Grid) to more easily see how the proportions of the characters line up with each other.

Blow up the characters at large scale on your screen, or zoom in. Now you can start to draw the characters. Alternate between using your ruler and drawing strokes by hand. Don’t worry if your attempts look a little messy—the aim of this exercise is for you to become comfortable with drawing type, and to observe the characteristics of the typeface and the similarities (or differences) between each character.

You will notice that serif typefaces are based on the principles of symmetry and order. Extend the strokes from the edge of the characters and notice the angles and proportions. Stems are almost always the same width, whatever the character, but you might notice that the size of the serifs is slightly larger on the uppercase ‘H’. Notice also that some parts of the characters are thinner; these sorts of stroke are called hairlines.

Step 4

Though we won’t apply all of these characteristics to our handwritten font, it’s really important to recognise that all typefaces are governed by a set of rules, whether formal, which is more common with serif and sans serifs type, or informal, which is more common with hand-drawn, painted or handwritten typefaces.

Once you’ve practiced drawing a typeface, or several typefaces if you want, you should start to do a bit of research on handwritten typefaces, to help you think about how you want your handwritten font to be organised.

Go to a font resource site like FontSquirrel or DaFont and take a look at the handwritten fonts available there. Pick a font that you think shares qualities with your own handwriting and download it. 

Choose a software programme that will allow you to view the full set of characters in the font. Adobe InDesign is a good choice, but you could also use Glyphs, which we’ll take a closer look at later on.

In InDesign, create a text frame and set the Font to your newly downloaded font. Here, I’ve chosen Wagnasty. Go to Window > Type & Tables > Glyphs to open the Glyphs panel. You’ll be able to see the full set of characters available in the typeface. 

Make a note of the types of characters that are present, and what’s notably absent. For example, in Wagnasty we’ve got:

• a full set of uppercase letters, A to Z
• no lowercase letters
• a full set of numbers, 1 to 9
• full-stop (.), comma (,), colon (:), semi-colon (;), exclamation mark (!), question mark (?)
• apostrophe (‘)
• round (parentheses) brackets (), square brackets [], braces/curly brackets {}, and chevrons <>
• some basic maths/equation symbols (= + %)
• hashtag (#)
• some currency symbols
• asterisk (*)
• forward slash (/), backslash (\), dash (-), swung dash (~), vertical bar (|)

This is a basic set of characters that would allow you to write most things in the English language without too much of a problem.

You should also note if the font has any additional weights, e.g. bold or italic. More often than not, a handwritten font will have only one regular weight, as the font needs to look authentic. Applying a different weight might look unnatural.

Most handwritten fonts have a similarly basic set of characters. Like Callie Hand:

Or some might include a few more, like Journal, which includes some quirky hand-drawn symbols or images:

2. Writing Your Own Characters

Now that you’ve practiced drawing typefaces, and had a look at the range of handwritten typefaces out there and the characters available within each typeface set, you can start to think about putting your own personalised typeface together.

For this section of the tutorial you’ll need the following:

• lined paper (a scruffy old notebook will suffice)
• drawing paper (white; and with some texture if you want to give a more informal, rustic appearance to your characters)
• sharpened HB or 1H pencil
• ruler with millimetre measurements
• a fine-point liquid ink pen in black (I like to use a Pilot Hi-TecPoint)
• eraser

Step 1

Many people will have developed over time two or more variations of their handwriting. When I write down longer passages of text, my handwriting tends to join together, and slant slightly to the right, creating an italicised cursive type.

However, there are a number of problems with trying to convert cursive, or script, handwriting to a digital font. You would have to ensure that the kerning (space between characters) is set down very precisely, so that the characters always appear perfectly joined up. You would also have to ensure that every combination of characters would look perfectly joined up, which is very difficult without having to spend hours post-editing the script on your computer.

So, unless you’re looking for a headache, it’s recommended that you look to digitise handwriting that is not cursive. Instead, it should have stand-alone characters that will not need to be refined to correspond precisely with any given neighbouring character. 

Luckily, I often use a different variation of my handwriting, usually for annotating documents or writing quick notes. It’s all set in uppercase, and is not joined up. It too has a slight italic slant.

Pick out a short passage from a book, and copy out the text onto lined paper using your natural handwriting style. While doing your best to keep the writing natural, try to make sure the characters are not joined up or touching too much. It doesn’t matter if you mix upper- and lowercase letters. But note, if you want to do that, you will have to eventually create a full set of uppercase characters and a full set of lowercase characters.

You can also practice writing out a few symbols, such as exclamation marks or brackets.

You can use this book passage as a useful reference for when you start to create your final handwriting sample. It doesn’t always feel natural to write individual characters, in an A to Z order, so you can look over to the passage and see how you created a ‘G’ or an ‘F’, for example, when you were writing in a flowing, natural way.

Step 2

Return to your drawing paper. Take your pencil and ruler and, following Steps 1 and 2 of Part One of the tutorial (above), draw a sequence of three lines, representing the cap height, x-height and baseline. 

In Part One, we created a group of lines that measured 30 mm in total height. However, if you tried to write naturally at this scale, you would certainly struggle! Reduce the total height between the Cap Height and Baseline to 6 mm; mark out the top 2 mm third of that to show the x-height. 

You might even find that this is still too large to allow you to write naturally without straining. Write a couple of characters onto the paper, to see what size you naturally write your characters. 

Reduce the total height to 4 or 5 mm if you’re more comfortable writing at a smaller scale.

Repeat the sequence of lines until you have filled the page.

Step 3

Take your ink pen (the black ink will create good contrast for scanning later on) and rotate the paper just a little anti-clockwise. This is to avoid straining the arm too much as you write.

At the same pace you would normally write, write the uppercase characters from A to Z in one go, along the same line if you have room. 

If you make any mistakes, simply try again on the next line down. But don’t worry about any minor errors or quirks in the writing. You want the writing to look organic and natural, and perfecting it too much will get rid of that.

Referring back to the list of characters we noted in Part One of the tutorial, write down other characters in the same natural style, and at the same scale. If you want to, you can also write a set of lowercase letters, a to z, as well.

Step 4

Allow the ink to dry completely, and then take an eraser and carefully rub out the pencil lines around the characters so that you are left with a lovely set of clean characters, ready to be scanned.

3. Scanning and Digitising Your Font

For this final part of the tutorial you will need:

• a scanner (or alternatively a tripod and digital camera)
• Adobe Illustrator
• access to a font editor/conversion software programme, e.g. FontLab Studio or Glyphs (you can get a free 30-day trial of Glyphs, and a mini version is available on Mac apps)

Note: We’ll take you through the process of using Glyphs in this tutorial, but there are loads of great type editing programmes out there. I personally find Glyphs to be very user-friendly, but many typographers will also put forward strong cases for FontLab and RoboFont.

Step 1

Setting the scanner to a high dpi (I scanned at 1600 dpi), scan in your handwriting sample. 

Save the file as a TIFF or JPEG. Then open Adobe Illustrator and create a New Document.

Go to File > Place and select your scanned image. With the image selected, open the Image Trace panel (Window > Image Trace). With the Preview box checked, set the Mode to Black and White, and adjust the Threshold, Paths and Corners levels until you’re happy with the accuracy of the trace. Click Trace.

Then, with the image still selected, go to Object > Image Trace > Expand. As a final step, Control-Click (Mac OS) or Right-Click (Windows) > Ungroup. 

Now you need to get rid of all the white sections on the image. Open the Layers panel (Window > Layers) and create a new layer. Drag it down to sit the new layer below the image layer. Select the Rectangle Tool (M) and drag to create a rectangle that extends across the whole artboard. Set the Fill to a contrasting bright color.

Now you can see more easily where there is white on the image. Select the white area around the outside and delete. Select the smaller white areas inside the bowls and counters of characters, and delete.

You’ve successfully vectorized your handwriting, great work! 

Step 2

Now open your font editing software. Here, I’m going to take you through the process of digitising your handwritten font using Glyphs.

Go to File > New to create a new Glyphs font. On the left-hand side of the Glyphs window that opens you’ll see a menu of options, listing groups of characters you can add to the font. 

Click Letter to view the full set of menu options. To insert uppercase letters, select Uppercase. A full set of uppercase characters, from A to Z, appears in the window.

Double-click a character to edit it directly. 

Hop back over to Illustrator and select the relevant vector character. Go to Edit > Copy.

Return to Glyphs, and go to Edit > Paste. Glyphs will place the vector in the window, ready for you to scale and adjust. The numeric values at the bottom of the screen are editable, allowing you to adjust the space to the left and right sides of the character, affecting the kerning. 

To the left of the window you can see ‘-’ and ‘+’ symbols, which allow you to scale the character. You can also manually adjust the scale, using the Scale (S) tool accessible in the tools panel running along the top of the window.

You should use the guides on the screen as a guide, sitting the bottom of the character on the Baseline, and the top of the character (if it’s uppercase) meeting the Cap Height line.

Step 3

You can flick back to view the full set of characters by clicking the Font tab towards the top of the window.

Repeat the process above, double-clicking characters in Glyphs to open them, and flicking back and forth between Illustrator and Glyphs, copying and pasting characters across.

You can also start to add in other sorts of characters, using the left-hand menu in the Glyphs window. You will have to manually add Numbers and Punctuation marks, selecting them from the pop-out menus and selecting Generate.

Step 4

Once you’ve added in all the characters for your font you can give it a name. 

Go to File > Font Info to open a new window. 

Give the font a suitable name, and you can also add in additional details, such as your name, your website and your Copyright info. Once you’re done, simply close the window.

Step 5

Once you’ve edited the characters in your font you can export it as a digital font. 

Go to File > Export. 

Keep the default options as they are, to create an OpenType Font, then click Next. Save the font in a folder that’s easily searchable.

You can exit Glyphs and navigate to your chosen folder, to view the font file. 

You can then install this on your computer, as you would any standard .otf font.

Conclusion

Your handwritten font is now complete, and ready to use as a digital font across your own documents. Use it to add a personal touch to notes or annotations, or incorporate it into design layouts to make your artwork truly unique!

Let’s recap what lessons we’ve covered in this tutorial. We looked at:

• how to practice drawing type, and recognise common elements and rules across typefaces
• how to apply those drawing lessons to your own handwriting, optimising it for digitisation
• how to scan your artwork and vectorise it in Illustrator
• how to convert your vectors to a digital font, editing it using Glyphs or other font editing software

Awesome work! Have fun creating more of your own fonts—why not experiment with different hand-drawn or painted styles?

Post pobrano z: The Basics of Drawing Type & Creating Your Own Handwritten Font

Ever wanted to give your digital layouts and designs a truly personal touch? In this tutorial we’ll look at how you can create a font from your own handwriting, for use on your computer. 

The tutorial will be split into three parts. Firstly, we’ll look at the basics of drawing a typeface. Then, once we’re warmed up, we’ll see how you can optimise your handwriting to ensure high quality and versatility. And lastly, we’ll analyse some different methods for getting your font onto the computer and converting your hand-drawn letters into a digital font.

1. Practice Drawing Type

What you’ll need for the first part of this tutorial:

• drawing paper (white)
• sharpened HB or 1H pencil
• ruler with millimetre measurements

You probably write scribbled notes or lists every day, but you’re rarely conscious of your handwriting. When you suddenly become very aware of your own handwriting, it can start to look unnatural.

You should first get into a more natural mode of writing. I find the best way to do this is to practice drawing a typeface. This is also really useful as it makes you more aware of the key characteristics of a typeface, and makes you more able to recognise common features (consistencies) between different characters within a typeface. This will prove useful when we start to refine our own handwritten characters, and optimise them for digitisation.

Step 1

Lay your ruler flat across the page, at a horizontal angle, as straight as you can make it. Take your sharpened pencil and, pressing down moderately hard, draw a line above the top edge of the ruler. 

If your ruler is a standardised 30 mm-wide ruler, you can keep the ruler in place, and draw a second line along the bottom edge of the ruler. This has the benefit of ensuring both lines are perfectly parallel. Otherwise, simply create two horizontal lines, 30 mm apart. The lower line represents the Baseline, and the top line is the Cap Height. 

Mark out the top 10 mm third of the total height between the lines and draw a third horizontal line with your ruler and pencil, pressing down more lightly to make a slightly fainter line. This line represents the x-height. Swot up on your typography terms, such as x-height and baseline, in my article on The A to Z of Typography.

Step 2

You can repeat the sequence of lines, using the same measurements from Step 1, to create a page filled with lines. This is your own writing grid, on which you can practice drawing typefaces.

Step 3

Open a software program where you can easily edit text, such as Adobe InDesign, or even Microsoft Word or Pages. 

Select a classic Serif typeface, such as Adobe Caslon Pro, which is shown here, or Garamond. To practice drawing a typeface it’s best to pick a serif to draw at first, as sans serif typefaces have more subtle features, and can be more tricky to draw accurately if you’re a beginner.

Type the following characters: ‘H n o y’, with a space between each. These are good characters to pick, as they display a range of different features: two vertical stems and a crossbar on the ‘H’, an aperture and serifs on the ‘n’, a fully enclosed counter on the ‘o’, and a sweeping descender and diagonal arms on the lowercase ‘y’.

If you’re working in InDesign you can also switch on the baseline grid (View > Grids & Guides > Show Baseline Grid) to more easily see how the proportions of the characters line up with each other.

Blow up the characters at large scale on your screen, or zoom in. Now you can start to draw the characters. Alternate between using your ruler and drawing strokes by hand. Don’t worry if your attempts look a little messy—the aim of this exercise is for you to become comfortable with drawing type, and to observe the characteristics of the typeface and the similarities (or differences) between each character.

You will notice that serif typefaces are based on the principles of symmetry and order. Extend the strokes from the edge of the characters and notice the angles and proportions. Stems are almost always the same width, whatever the character, but you might notice that the size of the serifs is slightly larger on the uppercase ‘H’. Notice also that some parts of the characters are thinner; these sorts of stroke are called hairlines.

Step 4

Though we won’t apply all of these characteristics to our handwritten font, it’s really important to recognise that all typefaces are governed by a set of rules, whether formal, which is more common with serif and sans serifs type, or informal, which is more common with hand-drawn, painted or handwritten typefaces.

Once you’ve practiced drawing a typeface, or several typefaces if you want, you should start to do a bit of research on handwritten typefaces, to help you think about how you want your handwritten font to be organised.

Go to a font resource site like FontSquirrel or DaFont and take a look at the handwritten fonts available there. Pick a font that you think shares qualities with your own handwriting and download it. 

Choose a software programme that will allow you to view the full set of characters in the font. Adobe InDesign is a good choice, but you could also use Glyphs, which we’ll take a closer look at later on.

In InDesign, create a text frame and set the Font to your newly downloaded font. Here, I’ve chosen Wagnasty. Go to Window > Type & Tables > Glyphs to open the Glyphs panel. You’ll be able to see the full set of characters available in the typeface. 

Make a note of the types of characters that are present, and what’s notably absent. For example, in Wagnasty we’ve got:

• a full set of uppercase letters, A to Z
• no lowercase letters
• a full set of numbers, 1 to 9
• full-stop (.), comma (,), colon (:), semi-colon (;), exclamation mark (!), question mark (?)
• apostrophe (‘)
• round (parentheses) brackets (), square brackets [], braces/curly brackets {}, and chevrons <>
• some basic maths/equation symbols (= + %)
• hashtag (#)
• some currency symbols
• asterisk (*)
• forward slash (/), backslash (\), dash (-), swung dash (~), vertical bar (|)

This is a basic set of characters that would allow you to write most things in the English language without too much of a problem.

You should also note if the font has any additional weights, e.g. bold or italic. More often than not, a handwritten font will have only one regular weight, as the font needs to look authentic. Applying a different weight might look unnatural.

Most handwritten fonts have a similarly basic set of characters. Like Callie Hand:

Or some might include a few more, like Journal, which includes some quirky hand-drawn symbols or images:

2. Writing Your Own Characters

Now that you’ve practiced drawing typefaces, and had a look at the range of handwritten typefaces out there and the characters available within each typeface set, you can start to think about putting your own personalised typeface together.

For this section of the tutorial you’ll need the following:

• lined paper (a scruffy old notebook will suffice)
• drawing paper (white; and with some texture if you want to give a more informal, rustic appearance to your characters)
• sharpened HB or 1H pencil
• ruler with millimetre measurements
• a fine-point liquid ink pen in black (I like to use a Pilot Hi-TecPoint)
• eraser

Step 1

Many people will have developed over time two or more variations of their handwriting. When I write down longer passages of text, my handwriting tends to join together, and slant slightly to the right, creating an italicised cursive type.

However, there are a number of problems with trying to convert cursive, or script, handwriting to a digital font. You would have to ensure that the kerning (space between characters) is set down very precisely, so that the characters always appear perfectly joined up. You would also have to ensure that every combination of characters would look perfectly joined up, which is very difficult without having to spend hours post-editing the script on your computer.

So, unless you’re looking for a headache, it’s recommended that you look to digitise handwriting that is not cursive. Instead, it should have stand-alone characters that will not need to be refined to correspond precisely with any given neighbouring character. 

Luckily, I often use a different variation of my handwriting, usually for annotating documents or writing quick notes. It’s all set in uppercase, and is not joined up. It too has a slight italic slant.

Pick out a short passage from a book, and copy out the text onto lined paper using your natural handwriting style. While doing your best to keep the writing natural, try to make sure the characters are not joined up or touching too much. It doesn’t matter if you mix upper- and lowercase letters. But note, if you want to do that, you will have to eventually create a full set of uppercase characters and a full set of lowercase characters.

You can also practice writing out a few symbols, such as exclamation marks or brackets.

You can use this book passage as a useful reference for when you start to create your final handwriting sample. It doesn’t always feel natural to write individual characters, in an A to Z order, so you can look over to the passage and see how you created a ‘G’ or an ‘F’, for example, when you were writing in a flowing, natural way.

Step 2

Return to your drawing paper. Take your pencil and ruler and, following Steps 1 and 2 of Part One of the tutorial (above), draw a sequence of three lines, representing the cap height, x-height and baseline. 

In Part One, we created a group of lines that measured 30 mm in total height. However, if you tried to write naturally at this scale, you would certainly struggle! Reduce the total height between the Cap Height and Baseline to 6 mm; mark out the top 2 mm third of that to show the x-height. 

You might even find that this is still too large to allow you to write naturally without straining. Write a couple of characters onto the paper, to see what size you naturally write your characters. 

Reduce the total height to 4 or 5 mm if you’re more comfortable writing at a smaller scale.

Repeat the sequence of lines until you have filled the page.

Step 3

Take your ink pen (the black ink will create good contrast for scanning later on) and rotate the paper just a little anti-clockwise. This is to avoid straining the arm too much as you write.

At the same pace you would normally write, write the uppercase characters from A to Z in one go, along the same line if you have room. 

If you make any mistakes, simply try again on the next line down. But don’t worry about any minor errors or quirks in the writing. You want the writing to look organic and natural, and perfecting it too much will get rid of that.

Referring back to the list of characters we noted in Part One of the tutorial, write down other characters in the same natural style, and at the same scale. If you want to, you can also write a set of lowercase letters, a to z, as well.

Step 4

Allow the ink to dry completely, and then take an eraser and carefully rub out the pencil lines around the characters so that you are left with a lovely set of clean characters, ready to be scanned.

3. Scanning and Digitising Your Font

For this final part of the tutorial you will need:

• a scanner (or alternatively a tripod and digital camera)
• Adobe Illustrator
• access to a font editor/conversion software programme, e.g. FontLab Studio or Glyphs (you can get a free 30-day trial of Glyphs, and a mini version is available on Mac apps)

Note: We’ll take you through the process of using Glyphs in this tutorial, but there are loads of great type editing programmes out there. I personally find Glyphs to be very user-friendly, but many typographers will also put forward strong cases for FontLab and RoboFont.

Step 1

Setting the scanner to a high dpi (I scanned at 1600 dpi), scan in your handwriting sample. 

Save the file as a TIFF or JPEG. Then open Adobe Illustrator and create a New Document.

Go to File > Place and select your scanned image. With the image selected, open the Image Trace panel (Window > Image Trace). With the Preview box checked, set the Mode to Black and White, and adjust the Threshold, Paths and Corners levels until you’re happy with the accuracy of the trace. Click Trace.

Then, with the image still selected, go to Object > Image Trace > Expand. As a final step, Control-Click (Mac OS) or Right-Click (Windows) > Ungroup. 

Now you need to get rid of all the white sections on the image. Open the Layers panel (Window > Layers) and create a new layer. Drag it down to sit the new layer below the image layer. Select the Rectangle Tool (M) and drag to create a rectangle that extends across the whole artboard. Set the Fill to a contrasting bright color.

Now you can see more easily where there is white on the image. Select the white area around the outside and delete. Select the smaller white areas inside the bowls and counters of characters, and delete.

You’ve successfully vectorized your handwriting, great work! 

Step 2

Now open your font editing software. Here, I’m going to take you through the process of digitising your handwritten font using Glyphs.

Go to File > New to create a new Glyphs font. On the left-hand side of the Glyphs window that opens you’ll see a menu of options, listing groups of characters you can add to the font. 

Click Letter to view the full set of menu options. To insert uppercase letters, select Uppercase. A full set of uppercase characters, from A to Z, appears in the window.

Double-click a character to edit it directly. 

Hop back over to Illustrator and select the relevant vector character. Go to Edit > Copy.

Return to Glyphs, and go to Edit > Paste. Glyphs will place the vector in the window, ready for you to scale and adjust. The numeric values at the bottom of the screen are editable, allowing you to adjust the space to the left and right sides of the character, affecting the kerning. 

To the left of the window you can see ‘-’ and ‘+’ symbols, which allow you to scale the character. You can also manually adjust the scale, using the Scale (S) tool accessible in the tools panel running along the top of the window.

You should use the guides on the screen as a guide, sitting the bottom of the character on the Baseline, and the top of the character (if it’s uppercase) meeting the Cap Height line.

Step 3

You can flick back to view the full set of characters by clicking the Font tab towards the top of the window.

Repeat the process above, double-clicking characters in Glyphs to open them, and flicking back and forth between Illustrator and Glyphs, copying and pasting characters across.

You can also start to add in other sorts of characters, using the left-hand menu in the Glyphs window. You will have to manually add Numbers and Punctuation marks, selecting them from the pop-out menus and selecting Generate.

Step 4

Once you’ve added in all the characters for your font you can give it a name. 

Go to File > Font Info to open a new window. 

Give the font a suitable name, and you can also add in additional details, such as your name, your website and your Copyright info. Once you’re done, simply close the window.

Step 5

Once you’ve edited the characters in your font you can export it as a digital font. 

Go to File > Export. 

Keep the default options as they are, to create an OpenType Font, then click Next. Save the font in a folder that’s easily searchable.

You can exit Glyphs and navigate to your chosen folder, to view the font file. 

You can then install this on your computer, as you would any standard .otf font.

Conclusion

Your handwritten font is now complete, and ready to use as a digital font across your own documents. Use it to add a personal touch to notes or annotations, or incorporate it into design layouts to make your artwork truly unique!

Let’s recap what lessons we’ve covered in this tutorial. We looked at:

• how to practice drawing type, and recognise common elements and rules across typefaces
• how to apply those drawing lessons to your own handwriting, optimising it for digitisation
• how to scan your artwork and vectorise it in Illustrator
• how to convert your vectors to a digital font, editing it using Glyphs or other font editing software

Awesome work! Have fun creating more of your own fonts—why not experiment with different hand-drawn or painted styles?

Post pobrano z: The Basics of Drawing Type & Creating Your Own Handwritten Font

Ever wanted to give your digital layouts and designs a truly personal touch? In this tutorial we’ll look at how you can create a font from your own handwriting, for use on your computer. 

The tutorial will be split into three parts. Firstly, we’ll look at the basics of drawing a typeface. Then, once we’re warmed up, we’ll see how you can optimise your handwriting to ensure high quality and versatility. And lastly, we’ll analyse some different methods for getting your font onto the computer and converting your hand-drawn letters into a digital font.

1. Practice Drawing Type

What you’ll need for the first part of this tutorial:

• drawing paper (white)
• sharpened HB or 1H pencil
• ruler with millimetre measurements

You probably write scribbled notes or lists every day, but you’re rarely conscious of your handwriting. When you suddenly become very aware of your own handwriting, it can start to look unnatural.

You should first get into a more natural mode of writing. I find the best way to do this is to practice drawing a typeface. This is also really useful as it makes you more aware of the key characteristics of a typeface, and makes you more able to recognise common features (consistencies) between different characters within a typeface. This will prove useful when we start to refine our own handwritten characters, and optimise them for digitisation.

Step 1

Lay your ruler flat across the page, at a horizontal angle, as straight as you can make it. Take your sharpened pencil and, pressing down moderately hard, draw a line above the top edge of the ruler. 

If your ruler is a standardised 30 mm-wide ruler, you can keep the ruler in place, and draw a second line along the bottom edge of the ruler. This has the benefit of ensuring both lines are perfectly parallel. Otherwise, simply create two horizontal lines, 30 mm apart. The lower line represents the Baseline, and the top line is the Cap Height. 

Mark out the top 10 mm third of the total height between the lines and draw a third horizontal line with your ruler and pencil, pressing down more lightly to make a slightly fainter line. This line represents the x-height. Swot up on your typography terms, such as x-height and baseline, in my article on The A to Z of Typography.

Step 2

You can repeat the sequence of lines, using the same measurements from Step 1, to create a page filled with lines. This is your own writing grid, on which you can practice drawing typefaces.

Step 3

Open a software program where you can easily edit text, such as Adobe InDesign, or even Microsoft Word or Pages. 

Select a classic Serif typeface, such as Adobe Caslon Pro, which is shown here, or Garamond. To practice drawing a typeface it’s best to pick a serif to draw at first, as sans serif typefaces have more subtle features, and can be more tricky to draw accurately if you’re a beginner.

Type the following characters: ‘H n o y’, with a space between each. These are good characters to pick, as they display a range of different features: two vertical stems and a crossbar on the ‘H’, an aperture and serifs on the ‘n’, a fully enclosed counter on the ‘o’, and a sweeping descender and diagonal arms on the lowercase ‘y’.

If you’re working in InDesign you can also switch on the baseline grid (View > Grids & Guides > Show Baseline Grid) to more easily see how the proportions of the characters line up with each other.

Blow up the characters at large scale on your screen, or zoom in. Now you can start to draw the characters. Alternate between using your ruler and drawing strokes by hand. Don’t worry if your attempts look a little messy—the aim of this exercise is for you to become comfortable with drawing type, and to observe the characteristics of the typeface and the similarities (or differences) between each character.

You will notice that serif typefaces are based on the principles of symmetry and order. Extend the strokes from the edge of the characters and notice the angles and proportions. Stems are almost always the same width, whatever the character, but you might notice that the size of the serifs is slightly larger on the uppercase ‘H’. Notice also that some parts of the characters are thinner; these sorts of stroke are called hairlines.

Step 4

Though we won’t apply all of these characteristics to our handwritten font, it’s really important to recognise that all typefaces are governed by a set of rules, whether formal, which is more common with serif and sans serifs type, or informal, which is more common with hand-drawn, painted or handwritten typefaces.

Once you’ve practiced drawing a typeface, or several typefaces if you want, you should start to do a bit of research on handwritten typefaces, to help you think about how you want your handwritten font to be organised.

Go to a font resource site like FontSquirrel or DaFont and take a look at the handwritten fonts available there. Pick a font that you think shares qualities with your own handwriting and download it. 

Choose a software programme that will allow you to view the full set of characters in the font. Adobe InDesign is a good choice, but you could also use Glyphs, which we’ll take a closer look at later on.

In InDesign, create a text frame and set the Font to your newly downloaded font. Here, I’ve chosen Wagnasty. Go to Window > Type & Tables > Glyphs to open the Glyphs panel. You’ll be able to see the full set of characters available in the typeface. 

Make a note of the types of characters that are present, and what’s notably absent. For example, in Wagnasty we’ve got:

• a full set of uppercase letters, A to Z
• no lowercase letters
• a full set of numbers, 1 to 9
• full-stop (.), comma (,), colon (:), semi-colon (;), exclamation mark (!), question mark (?)
• apostrophe (‘)
• round (parentheses) brackets (), square brackets [], braces/curly brackets {}, and chevrons <>
• some basic maths/equation symbols (= + %)
• hashtag (#)
• some currency symbols
• asterisk (*)
• forward slash (/), backslash (\), dash (-), swung dash (~), vertical bar (|)

This is a basic set of characters that would allow you to write most things in the English language without too much of a problem.

You should also note if the font has any additional weights, e.g. bold or italic. More often than not, a handwritten font will have only one regular weight, as the font needs to look authentic. Applying a different weight might look unnatural.

Most handwritten fonts have a similarly basic set of characters. Like Callie Hand:

Or some might include a few more, like Journal, which includes some quirky hand-drawn symbols or images:

2. Writing Your Own Characters

Now that you’ve practiced drawing typefaces, and had a look at the range of handwritten typefaces out there and the characters available within each typeface set, you can start to think about putting your own personalised typeface together.

For this section of the tutorial you’ll need the following:

• lined paper (a scruffy old notebook will suffice)
• drawing paper (white; and with some texture if you want to give a more informal, rustic appearance to your characters)
• sharpened HB or 1H pencil
• ruler with millimetre measurements
• a fine-point liquid ink pen in black (I like to use a Pilot Hi-TecPoint)
• eraser

Step 1

Many people will have developed over time two or more variations of their handwriting. When I write down longer passages of text, my handwriting tends to join together, and slant slightly to the right, creating an italicised cursive type.

However, there are a number of problems with trying to convert cursive, or script, handwriting to a digital font. You would have to ensure that the kerning (space between characters) is set down very precisely, so that the characters always appear perfectly joined up. You would also have to ensure that every combination of characters would look perfectly joined up, which is very difficult without having to spend hours post-editing the script on your computer.

So, unless you’re looking for a headache, it’s recommended that you look to digitise handwriting that is not cursive. Instead, it should have stand-alone characters that will not need to be refined to correspond precisely with any given neighbouring character. 

Luckily, I often use a different variation of my handwriting, usually for annotating documents or writing quick notes. It’s all set in uppercase, and is not joined up. It too has a slight italic slant.

Pick out a short passage from a book, and copy out the text onto lined paper using your natural handwriting style. While doing your best to keep the writing natural, try to make sure the characters are not joined up or touching too much. It doesn’t matter if you mix upper- and lowercase letters. But note, if you want to do that, you will have to eventually create a full set of uppercase characters and a full set of lowercase characters.

You can also practice writing out a few symbols, such as exclamation marks or brackets.

You can use this book passage as a useful reference for when you start to create your final handwriting sample. It doesn’t always feel natural to write individual characters, in an A to Z order, so you can look over to the passage and see how you created a ‘G’ or an ‘F’, for example, when you were writing in a flowing, natural way.

Step 2

Return to your drawing paper. Take your pencil and ruler and, following Steps 1 and 2 of Part One of the tutorial (above), draw a sequence of three lines, representing the cap height, x-height and baseline. 

In Part One, we created a group of lines that measured 30 mm in total height. However, if you tried to write naturally at this scale, you would certainly struggle! Reduce the total height between the Cap Height and Baseline to 6 mm; mark out the top 2 mm third of that to show the x-height. 

You might even find that this is still too large to allow you to write naturally without straining. Write a couple of characters onto the paper, to see what size you naturally write your characters. 

Reduce the total height to 4 or 5 mm if you’re more comfortable writing at a smaller scale.

Repeat the sequence of lines until you have filled the page.

Step 3

Take your ink pen (the black ink will create good contrast for scanning later on) and rotate the paper just a little anti-clockwise. This is to avoid straining the arm too much as you write.

At the same pace you would normally write, write the uppercase characters from A to Z in one go, along the same line if you have room. 

If you make any mistakes, simply try again on the next line down. But don’t worry about any minor errors or quirks in the writing. You want the writing to look organic and natural, and perfecting it too much will get rid of that.

Referring back to the list of characters we noted in Part One of the tutorial, write down other characters in the same natural style, and at the same scale. If you want to, you can also write a set of lowercase letters, a to z, as well.

Step 4

Allow the ink to dry completely, and then take an eraser and carefully rub out the pencil lines around the characters so that you are left with a lovely set of clean characters, ready to be scanned.

3. Scanning and Digitising Your Font

For this final part of the tutorial you will need:

• a scanner (or alternatively a tripod and digital camera)
• Adobe Illustrator
• access to a font editor/conversion software programme, e.g. FontLab Studio or Glyphs (you can get a free 30-day trial of Glyphs, and a mini version is available on Mac apps)

Note: We’ll take you through the process of using Glyphs in this tutorial, but there are loads of great type editing programmes out there. I personally find Glyphs to be very user-friendly, but many typographers will also put forward strong cases for FontLab and RoboFont.

Step 1

Setting the scanner to a high dpi (I scanned at 1600 dpi), scan in your handwriting sample. 

Save the file as a TIFF or JPEG. Then open Adobe Illustrator and create a New Document.

Go to File > Place and select your scanned image. With the image selected, open the Image Trace panel (Window > Image Trace). With the Preview box checked, set the Mode to Black and White, and adjust the Threshold, Paths and Corners levels until you’re happy with the accuracy of the trace. Click Trace.

Then, with the image still selected, go to Object > Image Trace > Expand. As a final step, Control-Click (Mac OS) or Right-Click (Windows) > Ungroup. 

Now you need to get rid of all the white sections on the image. Open the Layers panel (Window > Layers) and create a new layer. Drag it down to sit the new layer below the image layer. Select the Rectangle Tool (M) and drag to create a rectangle that extends across the whole artboard. Set the Fill to a contrasting bright color.

Now you can see more easily where there is white on the image. Select the white area around the outside and delete. Select the smaller white areas inside the bowls and counters of characters, and delete.

You’ve successfully vectorized your handwriting, great work! 

Step 2

Now open your font editing software. Here, I’m going to take you through the process of digitising your handwritten font using Glyphs.

Go to File > New to create a new Glyphs font. On the left-hand side of the Glyphs window that opens you’ll see a menu of options, listing groups of characters you can add to the font. 

Click Letter to view the full set of menu options. To insert uppercase letters, select Uppercase. A full set of uppercase characters, from A to Z, appears in the window.

Double-click a character to edit it directly. 

Hop back over to Illustrator and select the relevant vector character. Go to Edit > Copy.

Return to Glyphs, and go to Edit > Paste. Glyphs will place the vector in the window, ready for you to scale and adjust. The numeric values at the bottom of the screen are editable, allowing you to adjust the space to the left and right sides of the character, affecting the kerning. 

To the left of the window you can see ‘-’ and ‘+’ symbols, which allow you to scale the character. You can also manually adjust the scale, using the Scale (S) tool accessible in the tools panel running along the top of the window.

You should use the guides on the screen as a guide, sitting the bottom of the character on the Baseline, and the top of the character (if it’s uppercase) meeting the Cap Height line.

Step 3

You can flick back to view the full set of characters by clicking the Font tab towards the top of the window.

Repeat the process above, double-clicking characters in Glyphs to open them, and flicking back and forth between Illustrator and Glyphs, copying and pasting characters across.

You can also start to add in other sorts of characters, using the left-hand menu in the Glyphs window. You will have to manually add Numbers and Punctuation marks, selecting them from the pop-out menus and selecting Generate.

Step 4

Once you’ve added in all the characters for your font you can give it a name. 

Go to File > Font Info to open a new window. 

Give the font a suitable name, and you can also add in additional details, such as your name, your website and your Copyright info. Once you’re done, simply close the window.

Step 5

Once you’ve edited the characters in your font you can export it as a digital font. 

Go to File > Export. 

Keep the default options as they are, to create an OpenType Font, then click Next. Save the font in a folder that’s easily searchable.

You can exit Glyphs and navigate to your chosen folder, to view the font file. 

You can then install this on your computer, as you would any standard .otf font.

Conclusion

Your handwritten font is now complete, and ready to use as a digital font across your own documents. Use it to add a personal touch to notes or annotations, or incorporate it into design layouts to make your artwork truly unique!

Let’s recap what lessons we’ve covered in this tutorial. We looked at:

• how to practice drawing type, and recognise common elements and rules across typefaces
• how to apply those drawing lessons to your own handwriting, optimising it for digitisation
• how to scan your artwork and vectorise it in Illustrator
• how to convert your vectors to a digital font, editing it using Glyphs or other font editing software

Awesome work! Have fun creating more of your own fonts—why not experiment with different hand-drawn or painted styles?

Post pobrano z: The Basics of Drawing Type & Creating Your Own Handwritten Font

Ever wanted to give your digital layouts and designs a truly personal touch? In this tutorial we’ll look at how you can create a font from your own handwriting, for use on your computer. 

The tutorial will be split into three parts. Firstly, we’ll look at the basics of drawing a typeface. Then, once we’re warmed up, we’ll see how you can optimise your handwriting to ensure high quality and versatility. And lastly, we’ll analyse some different methods for getting your font onto the computer and converting your hand-drawn letters into a digital font.

1. Practice Drawing Type

What you’ll need for the first part of this tutorial:

• drawing paper (white)
• sharpened HB or 1H pencil
• ruler with millimetre measurements

You probably write scribbled notes or lists every day, but you’re rarely conscious of your handwriting. When you suddenly become very aware of your own handwriting, it can start to look unnatural.

You should first get into a more natural mode of writing. I find the best way to do this is to practice drawing a typeface. This is also really useful as it makes you more aware of the key characteristics of a typeface, and makes you more able to recognise common features (consistencies) between different characters within a typeface. This will prove useful when we start to refine our own handwritten characters, and optimise them for digitisation.

Step 1

Lay your ruler flat across the page, at a horizontal angle, as straight as you can make it. Take your sharpened pencil and, pressing down moderately hard, draw a line above the top edge of the ruler. 

If your ruler is a standardised 30 mm-wide ruler, you can keep the ruler in place, and draw a second line along the bottom edge of the ruler. This has the benefit of ensuring both lines are perfectly parallel. Otherwise, simply create two horizontal lines, 30 mm apart. The lower line represents the Baseline, and the top line is the Cap Height. 

Mark out the top 10 mm third of the total height between the lines and draw a third horizontal line with your ruler and pencil, pressing down more lightly to make a slightly fainter line. This line represents the x-height. Swot up on your typography terms, such as x-height and baseline, in my article on The A to Z of Typography.

Step 2

You can repeat the sequence of lines, using the same measurements from Step 1, to create a page filled with lines. This is your own writing grid, on which you can practice drawing typefaces.

Step 3

Open a software program where you can easily edit text, such as Adobe InDesign, or even Microsoft Word or Pages. 

Select a classic Serif typeface, such as Adobe Caslon Pro, which is shown here, or Garamond. To practice drawing a typeface it’s best to pick a serif to draw at first, as sans serif typefaces have more subtle features, and can be more tricky to draw accurately if you’re a beginner.

Type the following characters: ‘H n o y’, with a space between each. These are good characters to pick, as they display a range of different features: two vertical stems and a crossbar on the ‘H’, an aperture and serifs on the ‘n’, a fully enclosed counter on the ‘o’, and a sweeping descender and diagonal arms on the lowercase ‘y’.

If you’re working in InDesign you can also switch on the baseline grid (View > Grids & Guides > Show Baseline Grid) to more easily see how the proportions of the characters line up with each other.

Blow up the characters at large scale on your screen, or zoom in. Now you can start to draw the characters. Alternate between using your ruler and drawing strokes by hand. Don’t worry if your attempts look a little messy—the aim of this exercise is for you to become comfortable with drawing type, and to observe the characteristics of the typeface and the similarities (or differences) between each character.

You will notice that serif typefaces are based on the principles of symmetry and order. Extend the strokes from the edge of the characters and notice the angles and proportions. Stems are almost always the same width, whatever the character, but you might notice that the size of the serifs is slightly larger on the uppercase ‘H’. Notice also that some parts of the characters are thinner; these sorts of stroke are called hairlines.

Step 4

Though we won’t apply all of these characteristics to our handwritten font, it’s really important to recognise that all typefaces are governed by a set of rules, whether formal, which is more common with serif and sans serifs type, or informal, which is more common with hand-drawn, painted or handwritten typefaces.

Once you’ve practiced drawing a typeface, or several typefaces if you want, you should start to do a bit of research on handwritten typefaces, to help you think about how you want your handwritten font to be organised.

Go to a font resource site like FontSquirrel or DaFont and take a look at the handwritten fonts available there. Pick a font that you think shares qualities with your own handwriting and download it. 

Choose a software programme that will allow you to view the full set of characters in the font. Adobe InDesign is a good choice, but you could also use Glyphs, which we’ll take a closer look at later on.

In InDesign, create a text frame and set the Font to your newly downloaded font. Here, I’ve chosen Wagnasty. Go to Window > Type & Tables > Glyphs to open the Glyphs panel. You’ll be able to see the full set of characters available in the typeface. 

Make a note of the types of characters that are present, and what’s notably absent. For example, in Wagnasty we’ve got:

• a full set of uppercase letters, A to Z
• no lowercase letters
• a full set of numbers, 1 to 9
• full-stop (.), comma (,), colon (:), semi-colon (;), exclamation mark (!), question mark (?)
• apostrophe (‘)
• round (parentheses) brackets (), square brackets [], braces/curly brackets {}, and chevrons <>
• some basic maths/equation symbols (= + %)
• hashtag (#)
• some currency symbols
• asterisk (*)
• forward slash (/), backslash (\), dash (-), swung dash (~), vertical bar (|)

This is a basic set of characters that would allow you to write most things in the English language without too much of a problem.

You should also note if the font has any additional weights, e.g. bold or italic. More often than not, a handwritten font will have only one regular weight, as the font needs to look authentic. Applying a different weight might look unnatural.

Most handwritten fonts have a similarly basic set of characters. Like Callie Hand:

Or some might include a few more, like Journal, which includes some quirky hand-drawn symbols or images:

2. Writing Your Own Characters

Now that you’ve practiced drawing typefaces, and had a look at the range of handwritten typefaces out there and the characters available within each typeface set, you can start to think about putting your own personalised typeface together.

For this section of the tutorial you’ll need the following:

• lined paper (a scruffy old notebook will suffice)
• drawing paper (white; and with some texture if you want to give a more informal, rustic appearance to your characters)
• sharpened HB or 1H pencil
• ruler with millimetre measurements
• a fine-point liquid ink pen in black (I like to use a Pilot Hi-TecPoint)
• eraser

Step 1

Many people will have developed over time two or more variations of their handwriting. When I write down longer passages of text, my handwriting tends to join together, and slant slightly to the right, creating an italicised cursive type.

However, there are a number of problems with trying to convert cursive, or script, handwriting to a digital font. You would have to ensure that the kerning (space between characters) is set down very precisely, so that the characters always appear perfectly joined up. You would also have to ensure that every combination of characters would look perfectly joined up, which is very difficult without having to spend hours post-editing the script on your computer.

So, unless you’re looking for a headache, it’s recommended that you look to digitise handwriting that is not cursive. Instead, it should have stand-alone characters that will not need to be refined to correspond precisely with any given neighbouring character. 

Luckily, I often use a different variation of my handwriting, usually for annotating documents or writing quick notes. It’s all set in uppercase, and is not joined up. It too has a slight italic slant.

Pick out a short passage from a book, and copy out the text onto lined paper using your natural handwriting style. While doing your best to keep the writing natural, try to make sure the characters are not joined up or touching too much. It doesn’t matter if you mix upper- and lowercase letters. But note, if you want to do that, you will have to eventually create a full set of uppercase characters and a full set of lowercase characters.

You can also practice writing out a few symbols, such as exclamation marks or brackets.

You can use this book passage as a useful reference for when you start to create your final handwriting sample. It doesn’t always feel natural to write individual characters, in an A to Z order, so you can look over to the passage and see how you created a ‘G’ or an ‘F’, for example, when you were writing in a flowing, natural way.

Step 2

Return to your drawing paper. Take your pencil and ruler and, following Steps 1 and 2 of Part One of the tutorial (above), draw a sequence of three lines, representing the cap height, x-height and baseline. 

In Part One, we created a group of lines that measured 30 mm in total height. However, if you tried to write naturally at this scale, you would certainly struggle! Reduce the total height between the Cap Height and Baseline to 6 mm; mark out the top 2 mm third of that to show the x-height. 

You might even find that this is still too large to allow you to write naturally without straining. Write a couple of characters onto the paper, to see what size you naturally write your characters. 

Reduce the total height to 4 or 5 mm if you’re more comfortable writing at a smaller scale.

Repeat the sequence of lines until you have filled the page.

Step 3

Take your ink pen (the black ink will create good contrast for scanning later on) and rotate the paper just a little anti-clockwise. This is to avoid straining the arm too much as you write.

At the same pace you would normally write, write the uppercase characters from A to Z in one go, along the same line if you have room. 

If you make any mistakes, simply try again on the next line down. But don’t worry about any minor errors or quirks in the writing. You want the writing to look organic and natural, and perfecting it too much will get rid of that.

Referring back to the list of characters we noted in Part One of the tutorial, write down other characters in the same natural style, and at the same scale. If you want to, you can also write a set of lowercase letters, a to z, as well.

Step 4

Allow the ink to dry completely, and then take an eraser and carefully rub out the pencil lines around the characters so that you are left with a lovely set of clean characters, ready to be scanned.

3. Scanning and Digitising Your Font

For this final part of the tutorial you will need:

• a scanner (or alternatively a tripod and digital camera)
• Adobe Illustrator
• access to a font editor/conversion software programme, e.g. FontLab Studio or Glyphs (you can get a free 30-day trial of Glyphs, and a mini version is available on Mac apps)

Note: We’ll take you through the process of using Glyphs in this tutorial, but there are loads of great type editing programmes out there. I personally find Glyphs to be very user-friendly, but many typographers will also put forward strong cases for FontLab and RoboFont.

Step 1

Setting the scanner to a high dpi (I scanned at 1600 dpi), scan in your handwriting sample. 

Save the file as a TIFF or JPEG. Then open Adobe Illustrator and create a New Document.

Go to File > Place and select your scanned image. With the image selected, open the Image Trace panel (Window > Image Trace). With the Preview box checked, set the Mode to Black and White, and adjust the Threshold, Paths and Corners levels until you’re happy with the accuracy of the trace. Click Trace.

Then, with the image still selected, go to Object > Image Trace > Expand. As a final step, Control-Click (Mac OS) or Right-Click (Windows) > Ungroup. 

Now you need to get rid of all the white sections on the image. Open the Layers panel (Window > Layers) and create a new layer. Drag it down to sit the new layer below the image layer. Select the Rectangle Tool (M) and drag to create a rectangle that extends across the whole artboard. Set the Fill to a contrasting bright color.

Now you can see more easily where there is white on the image. Select the white area around the outside and delete. Select the smaller white areas inside the bowls and counters of characters, and delete.

You’ve successfully vectorized your handwriting, great work! 

Step 2

Now open your font editing software. Here, I’m going to take you through the process of digitising your handwritten font using Glyphs.

Go to File > New to create a new Glyphs font. On the left-hand side of the Glyphs window that opens you’ll see a menu of options, listing groups of characters you can add to the font. 

Click Letter to view the full set of menu options. To insert uppercase letters, select Uppercase. A full set of uppercase characters, from A to Z, appears in the window.

Double-click a character to edit it directly. 

Hop back over to Illustrator and select the relevant vector character. Go to Edit > Copy.

Return to Glyphs, and go to Edit > Paste. Glyphs will place the vector in the window, ready for you to scale and adjust. The numeric values at the bottom of the screen are editable, allowing you to adjust the space to the left and right sides of the character, affecting the kerning. 

To the left of the window you can see ‘-’ and ‘+’ symbols, which allow you to scale the character. You can also manually adjust the scale, using the Scale (S) tool accessible in the tools panel running along the top of the window.

You should use the guides on the screen as a guide, sitting the bottom of the character on the Baseline, and the top of the character (if it’s uppercase) meeting the Cap Height line.

Step 3

You can flick back to view the full set of characters by clicking the Font tab towards the top of the window.

Repeat the process above, double-clicking characters in Glyphs to open them, and flicking back and forth between Illustrator and Glyphs, copying and pasting characters across.

You can also start to add in other sorts of characters, using the left-hand menu in the Glyphs window. You will have to manually add Numbers and Punctuation marks, selecting them from the pop-out menus and selecting Generate.

Step 4

Once you’ve added in all the characters for your font you can give it a name. 

Go to File > Font Info to open a new window. 

Give the font a suitable name, and you can also add in additional details, such as your name, your website and your Copyright info. Once you’re done, simply close the window.

Step 5

Once you’ve edited the characters in your font you can export it as a digital font. 

Go to File > Export. 

Keep the default options as they are, to create an OpenType Font, then click Next. Save the font in a folder that’s easily searchable.

You can exit Glyphs and navigate to your chosen folder, to view the font file. 

You can then install this on your computer, as you would any standard .otf font.

Conclusion

Your handwritten font is now complete, and ready to use as a digital font across your own documents. Use it to add a personal touch to notes or annotations, or incorporate it into design layouts to make your artwork truly unique!

Let’s recap what lessons we’ve covered in this tutorial. We looked at:

• how to practice drawing type, and recognise common elements and rules across typefaces
• how to apply those drawing lessons to your own handwriting, optimising it for digitisation
• how to scan your artwork and vectorise it in Illustrator
• how to convert your vectors to a digital font, editing it using Glyphs or other font editing software

Awesome work! Have fun creating more of your own fonts—why not experiment with different hand-drawn or painted styles?

Post pobrano z: The Basics of Drawing Type & Creating Your Own Handwritten Font

Ever wanted to give your digital layouts and designs a truly personal touch? In this tutorial we’ll look at how you can create a font from your own handwriting, for use on your computer. 

The tutorial will be split into three parts. Firstly, we’ll look at the basics of drawing a typeface. Then, once we’re warmed up, we’ll see how you can optimise your handwriting to ensure high quality and versatility. And lastly, we’ll analyse some different methods for getting your font onto the computer and converting your hand-drawn letters into a digital font.

1. Practice Drawing Type

What you’ll need for the first part of this tutorial:

• drawing paper (white)
• sharpened HB or 1H pencil
• ruler with millimetre measurements

You probably write scribbled notes or lists every day, but you’re rarely conscious of your handwriting. When you suddenly become very aware of your own handwriting, it can start to look unnatural.

You should first get into a more natural mode of writing. I find the best way to do this is to practice drawing a typeface. This is also really useful as it makes you more aware of the key characteristics of a typeface, and makes you more able to recognise common features (consistencies) between different characters within a typeface. This will prove useful when we start to refine our own handwritten characters, and optimise them for digitisation.

Step 1

Lay your ruler flat across the page, at a horizontal angle, as straight as you can make it. Take your sharpened pencil and, pressing down moderately hard, draw a line above the top edge of the ruler. 

If your ruler is a standardised 30 mm-wide ruler, you can keep the ruler in place, and draw a second line along the bottom edge of the ruler. This has the benefit of ensuring both lines are perfectly parallel. Otherwise, simply create two horizontal lines, 30 mm apart. The lower line represents the Baseline, and the top line is the Cap Height. 

Mark out the top 10 mm third of the total height between the lines and draw a third horizontal line with your ruler and pencil, pressing down more lightly to make a slightly fainter line. This line represents the x-height. Swot up on your typography terms, such as x-height and baseline, in my article on The A to Z of Typography.

Step 2

You can repeat the sequence of lines, using the same measurements from Step 1, to create a page filled with lines. This is your own writing grid, on which you can practice drawing typefaces.

Step 3

Open a software program where you can easily edit text, such as Adobe InDesign, or even Microsoft Word or Pages. 

Select a classic Serif typeface, such as Adobe Caslon Pro, which is shown here, or Garamond. To practice drawing a typeface it’s best to pick a serif to draw at first, as sans serif typefaces have more subtle features, and can be more tricky to draw accurately if you’re a beginner.

Type the following characters: ‘H n o y’, with a space between each. These are good characters to pick, as they display a range of different features: two vertical stems and a crossbar on the ‘H’, an aperture and serifs on the ‘n’, a fully enclosed counter on the ‘o’, and a sweeping descender and diagonal arms on the lowercase ‘y’.

If you’re working in InDesign you can also switch on the baseline grid (View > Grids & Guides > Show Baseline Grid) to more easily see how the proportions of the characters line up with each other.

Blow up the characters at large scale on your screen, or zoom in. Now you can start to draw the characters. Alternate between using your ruler and drawing strokes by hand. Don’t worry if your attempts look a little messy—the aim of this exercise is for you to become comfortable with drawing type, and to observe the characteristics of the typeface and the similarities (or differences) between each character.

You will notice that serif typefaces are based on the principles of symmetry and order. Extend the strokes from the edge of the characters and notice the angles and proportions. Stems are almost always the same width, whatever the character, but you might notice that the size of the serifs is slightly larger on the uppercase ‘H’. Notice also that some parts of the characters are thinner; these sorts of stroke are called hairlines.

Step 4

Though we won’t apply all of these characteristics to our handwritten font, it’s really important to recognise that all typefaces are governed by a set of rules, whether formal, which is more common with serif and sans serifs type, or informal, which is more common with hand-drawn, painted or handwritten typefaces.

Once you’ve practiced drawing a typeface, or several typefaces if you want, you should start to do a bit of research on handwritten typefaces, to help you think about how you want your handwritten font to be organised.

Go to a font resource site like FontSquirrel or DaFont and take a look at the handwritten fonts available there. Pick a font that you think shares qualities with your own handwriting and download it. 

Choose a software programme that will allow you to view the full set of characters in the font. Adobe InDesign is a good choice, but you could also use Glyphs, which we’ll take a closer look at later on.

In InDesign, create a text frame and set the Font to your newly downloaded font. Here, I’ve chosen Wagnasty. Go to Window > Type & Tables > Glyphs to open the Glyphs panel. You’ll be able to see the full set of characters available in the typeface. 

Make a note of the types of characters that are present, and what’s notably absent. For example, in Wagnasty we’ve got:

• a full set of uppercase letters, A to Z
• no lowercase letters
• a full set of numbers, 1 to 9
• full-stop (.), comma (,), colon (:), semi-colon (;), exclamation mark (!), question mark (?)
• apostrophe (‘)
• round (parentheses) brackets (), square brackets [], braces/curly brackets {}, and chevrons <>
• some basic maths/equation symbols (= + %)
• hashtag (#)
• some currency symbols
• asterisk (*)
• forward slash (/), backslash (\), dash (-), swung dash (~), vertical bar (|)

This is a basic set of characters that would allow you to write most things in the English language without too much of a problem.

You should also note if the font has any additional weights, e.g. bold or italic. More often than not, a handwritten font will have only one regular weight, as the font needs to look authentic. Applying a different weight might look unnatural.

Most handwritten fonts have a similarly basic set of characters. Like Callie Hand:

Or some might include a few more, like Journal, which includes some quirky hand-drawn symbols or images:

2. Writing Your Own Characters

Now that you’ve practiced drawing typefaces, and had a look at the range of handwritten typefaces out there and the characters available within each typeface set, you can start to think about putting your own personalised typeface together.

For this section of the tutorial you’ll need the following:

• lined paper (a scruffy old notebook will suffice)
• drawing paper (white; and with some texture if you want to give a more informal, rustic appearance to your characters)
• sharpened HB or 1H pencil
• ruler with millimetre measurements
• a fine-point liquid ink pen in black (I like to use a Pilot Hi-TecPoint)
• eraser

Step 1

Many people will have developed over time two or more variations of their handwriting. When I write down longer passages of text, my handwriting tends to join together, and slant slightly to the right, creating an italicised cursive type.

However, there are a number of problems with trying to convert cursive, or script, handwriting to a digital font. You would have to ensure that the kerning (space between characters) is set down very precisely, so that the characters always appear perfectly joined up. You would also have to ensure that every combination of characters would look perfectly joined up, which is very difficult without having to spend hours post-editing the script on your computer.

So, unless you’re looking for a headache, it’s recommended that you look to digitise handwriting that is not cursive. Instead, it should have stand-alone characters that will not need to be refined to correspond precisely with any given neighbouring character. 

Luckily, I often use a different variation of my handwriting, usually for annotating documents or writing quick notes. It’s all set in uppercase, and is not joined up. It too has a slight italic slant.

Pick out a short passage from a book, and copy out the text onto lined paper using your natural handwriting style. While doing your best to keep the writing natural, try to make sure the characters are not joined up or touching too much. It doesn’t matter if you mix upper- and lowercase letters. But note, if you want to do that, you will have to eventually create a full set of uppercase characters and a full set of lowercase characters.

You can also practice writing out a few symbols, such as exclamation marks or brackets.

You can use this book passage as a useful reference for when you start to create your final handwriting sample. It doesn’t always feel natural to write individual characters, in an A to Z order, so you can look over to the passage and see how you created a ‘G’ or an ‘F’, for example, when you were writing in a flowing, natural way.

Step 2

Return to your drawing paper. Take your pencil and ruler and, following Steps 1 and 2 of Part One of the tutorial (above), draw a sequence of three lines, representing the cap height, x-height and baseline. 

In Part One, we created a group of lines that measured 30 mm in total height. However, if you tried to write naturally at this scale, you would certainly struggle! Reduce the total height between the Cap Height and Baseline to 6 mm; mark out the top 2 mm third of that to show the x-height. 

You might even find that this is still too large to allow you to write naturally without straining. Write a couple of characters onto the paper, to see what size you naturally write your characters. 

Reduce the total height to 4 or 5 mm if you’re more comfortable writing at a smaller scale.

Repeat the sequence of lines until you have filled the page.

Step 3

Take your ink pen (the black ink will create good contrast for scanning later on) and rotate the paper just a little anti-clockwise. This is to avoid straining the arm too much as you write.

At the same pace you would normally write, write the uppercase characters from A to Z in one go, along the same line if you have room. 

If you make any mistakes, simply try again on the next line down. But don’t worry about any minor errors or quirks in the writing. You want the writing to look organic and natural, and perfecting it too much will get rid of that.

Referring back to the list of characters we noted in Part One of the tutorial, write down other characters in the same natural style, and at the same scale. If you want to, you can also write a set of lowercase letters, a to z, as well.

Step 4

Allow the ink to dry completely, and then take an eraser and carefully rub out the pencil lines around the characters so that you are left with a lovely set of clean characters, ready to be scanned.

3. Scanning and Digitising Your Font

For this final part of the tutorial you will need:

• a scanner (or alternatively a tripod and digital camera)
• Adobe Illustrator
• access to a font editor/conversion software programme, e.g. FontLab Studio or Glyphs (you can get a free 30-day trial of Glyphs, and a mini version is available on Mac apps)

Note: We’ll take you through the process of using Glyphs in this tutorial, but there are loads of great type editing programmes out there. I personally find Glyphs to be very user-friendly, but many typographers will also put forward strong cases for FontLab and RoboFont.

Step 1

Setting the scanner to a high dpi (I scanned at 1600 dpi), scan in your handwriting sample. 

Save the file as a TIFF or JPEG. Then open Adobe Illustrator and create a New Document.

Go to File > Place and select your scanned image. With the image selected, open the Image Trace panel (Window > Image Trace). With the Preview box checked, set the Mode to Black and White, and adjust the Threshold, Paths and Corners levels until you’re happy with the accuracy of the trace. Click Trace.

Then, with the image still selected, go to Object > Image Trace > Expand. As a final step, Control-Click (Mac OS) or Right-Click (Windows) > Ungroup. 

Now you need to get rid of all the white sections on the image. Open the Layers panel (Window > Layers) and create a new layer. Drag it down to sit the new layer below the image layer. Select the Rectangle Tool (M) and drag to create a rectangle that extends across the whole artboard. Set the Fill to a contrasting bright color.

Now you can see more easily where there is white on the image. Select the white area around the outside and delete. Select the smaller white areas inside the bowls and counters of characters, and delete.

You’ve successfully vectorized your handwriting, great work! 

Step 2

Now open your font editing software. Here, I’m going to take you through the process of digitising your handwritten font using Glyphs.

Go to File > New to create a new Glyphs font. On the left-hand side of the Glyphs window that opens you’ll see a menu of options, listing groups of characters you can add to the font. 

Click Letter to view the full set of menu options. To insert uppercase letters, select Uppercase. A full set of uppercase characters, from A to Z, appears in the window.

Double-click a character to edit it directly. 

Hop back over to Illustrator and select the relevant vector character. Go to Edit > Copy.

Return to Glyphs, and go to Edit > Paste. Glyphs will place the vector in the window, ready for you to scale and adjust. The numeric values at the bottom of the screen are editable, allowing you to adjust the space to the left and right sides of the character, affecting the kerning. 

To the left of the window you can see ‘-’ and ‘+’ symbols, which allow you to scale the character. You can also manually adjust the scale, using the Scale (S) tool accessible in the tools panel running along the top of the window.

You should use the guides on the screen as a guide, sitting the bottom of the character on the Baseline, and the top of the character (if it’s uppercase) meeting the Cap Height line.

Step 3

You can flick back to view the full set of characters by clicking the Font tab towards the top of the window.

Repeat the process above, double-clicking characters in Glyphs to open them, and flicking back and forth between Illustrator and Glyphs, copying and pasting characters across.

You can also start to add in other sorts of characters, using the left-hand menu in the Glyphs window. You will have to manually add Numbers and Punctuation marks, selecting them from the pop-out menus and selecting Generate.

Step 4

Once you’ve added in all the characters for your font you can give it a name. 

Go to File > Font Info to open a new window. 

Give the font a suitable name, and you can also add in additional details, such as your name, your website and your Copyright info. Once you’re done, simply close the window.

Step 5

Once you’ve edited the characters in your font you can export it as a digital font. 

Go to File > Export. 

Keep the default options as they are, to create an OpenType Font, then click Next. Save the font in a folder that’s easily searchable.

You can exit Glyphs and navigate to your chosen folder, to view the font file. 

You can then install this on your computer, as you would any standard .otf font.

Conclusion

Your handwritten font is now complete, and ready to use as a digital font across your own documents. Use it to add a personal touch to notes or annotations, or incorporate it into design layouts to make your artwork truly unique!

Let’s recap what lessons we’ve covered in this tutorial. We looked at:

• how to practice drawing type, and recognise common elements and rules across typefaces
• how to apply those drawing lessons to your own handwriting, optimising it for digitisation
• how to scan your artwork and vectorise it in Illustrator
• how to convert your vectors to a digital font, editing it using Glyphs or other font editing software

Awesome work! Have fun creating more of your own fonts—why not experiment with different hand-drawn or painted styles?

Post pobrano z: The Basics of Drawing Type & Creating Your Own Handwritten Font

Ever wanted to give your digital layouts and designs a truly personal touch? In this tutorial we’ll look at how you can create a font from your own handwriting, for use on your computer. 

The tutorial will be split into three parts. Firstly, we’ll look at the basics of drawing a typeface. Then, once we’re warmed up, we’ll see how you can optimise your handwriting to ensure high quality and versatility. And lastly, we’ll analyse some different methods for getting your font onto the computer and converting your hand-drawn letters into a digital font.

1. Practice Drawing Type

What you’ll need for the first part of this tutorial:

• drawing paper (white)
• sharpened HB or 1H pencil
• ruler with millimetre measurements

You probably write scribbled notes or lists every day, but you’re rarely conscious of your handwriting. When you suddenly become very aware of your own handwriting, it can start to look unnatural.

You should first get into a more natural mode of writing. I find the best way to do this is to practice drawing a typeface. This is also really useful as it makes you more aware of the key characteristics of a typeface, and makes you more able to recognise common features (consistencies) between different characters within a typeface. This will prove useful when we start to refine our own handwritten characters, and optimise them for digitisation.

Step 1

Lay your ruler flat across the page, at a horizontal angle, as straight as you can make it. Take your sharpened pencil and, pressing down moderately hard, draw a line above the top edge of the ruler. 

If your ruler is a standardised 30 mm-wide ruler, you can keep the ruler in place, and draw a second line along the bottom edge of the ruler. This has the benefit of ensuring both lines are perfectly parallel. Otherwise, simply create two horizontal lines, 30 mm apart. The lower line represents the Baseline, and the top line is the Cap Height. 

Mark out the top 10 mm third of the total height between the lines and draw a third horizontal line with your ruler and pencil, pressing down more lightly to make a slightly fainter line. This line represents the x-height. Swot up on your typography terms, such as x-height and baseline, in my article on The A to Z of Typography.

Step 2

You can repeat the sequence of lines, using the same measurements from Step 1, to create a page filled with lines. This is your own writing grid, on which you can practice drawing typefaces.

Step 3

Open a software program where you can easily edit text, such as Adobe InDesign, or even Microsoft Word or Pages. 

Select a classic Serif typeface, such as Adobe Caslon Pro, which is shown here, or Garamond. To practice drawing a typeface it’s best to pick a serif to draw at first, as sans serif typefaces have more subtle features, and can be more tricky to draw accurately if you’re a beginner.

Type the following characters: ‘H n o y’, with a space between each. These are good characters to pick, as they display a range of different features: two vertical stems and a crossbar on the ‘H’, an aperture and serifs on the ‘n’, a fully enclosed counter on the ‘o’, and a sweeping descender and diagonal arms on the lowercase ‘y’.

If you’re working in InDesign you can also switch on the baseline grid (View > Grids & Guides > Show Baseline Grid) to more easily see how the proportions of the characters line up with each other.

Blow up the characters at large scale on your screen, or zoom in. Now you can start to draw the characters. Alternate between using your ruler and drawing strokes by hand. Don’t worry if your attempts look a little messy—the aim of this exercise is for you to become comfortable with drawing type, and to observe the characteristics of the typeface and the similarities (or differences) between each character.

You will notice that serif typefaces are based on the principles of symmetry and order. Extend the strokes from the edge of the characters and notice the angles and proportions. Stems are almost always the same width, whatever the character, but you might notice that the size of the serifs is slightly larger on the uppercase ‘H’. Notice also that some parts of the characters are thinner; these sorts of stroke are called hairlines.

Step 4

Though we won’t apply all of these characteristics to our handwritten font, it’s really important to recognise that all typefaces are governed by a set of rules, whether formal, which is more common with serif and sans serifs type, or informal, which is more common with hand-drawn, painted or handwritten typefaces.

Once you’ve practiced drawing a typeface, or several typefaces if you want, you should start to do a bit of research on handwritten typefaces, to help you think about how you want your handwritten font to be organised.

Go to a font resource site like FontSquirrel or DaFont and take a look at the handwritten fonts available there. Pick a font that you think shares qualities with your own handwriting and download it. 

Choose a software programme that will allow you to view the full set of characters in the font. Adobe InDesign is a good choice, but you could also use Glyphs, which we’ll take a closer look at later on.

In InDesign, create a text frame and set the Font to your newly downloaded font. Here, I’ve chosen Wagnasty. Go to Window > Type & Tables > Glyphs to open the Glyphs panel. You’ll be able to see the full set of characters available in the typeface. 

Make a note of the types of characters that are present, and what’s notably absent. For example, in Wagnasty we’ve got:

• a full set of uppercase letters, A to Z
• no lowercase letters
• a full set of numbers, 1 to 9
• full-stop (.), comma (,), colon (:), semi-colon (;), exclamation mark (!), question mark (?)
• apostrophe (‘)
• round (parentheses) brackets (), square brackets [], braces/curly brackets {}, and chevrons <>
• some basic maths/equation symbols (= + %)
• hashtag (#)
• some currency symbols
• asterisk (*)
• forward slash (/), backslash (\), dash (-), swung dash (~), vertical bar (|)

This is a basic set of characters that would allow you to write most things in the English language without too much of a problem.

You should also note if the font has any additional weights, e.g. bold or italic. More often than not, a handwritten font will have only one regular weight, as the font needs to look authentic. Applying a different weight might look unnatural.

Most handwritten fonts have a similarly basic set of characters. Like Callie Hand:

Or some might include a few more, like Journal, which includes some quirky hand-drawn symbols or images:

2. Writing Your Own Characters

Now that you’ve practiced drawing typefaces, and had a look at the range of handwritten typefaces out there and the characters available within each typeface set, you can start to think about putting your own personalised typeface together.

For this section of the tutorial you’ll need the following:

• lined paper (a scruffy old notebook will suffice)
• drawing paper (white; and with some texture if you want to give a more informal, rustic appearance to your characters)
• sharpened HB or 1H pencil
• ruler with millimetre measurements
• a fine-point liquid ink pen in black (I like to use a Pilot Hi-TecPoint)
• eraser

Step 1

Many people will have developed over time two or more variations of their handwriting. When I write down longer passages of text, my handwriting tends to join together, and slant slightly to the right, creating an italicised cursive type.

However, there are a number of problems with trying to convert cursive, or script, handwriting to a digital font. You would have to ensure that the kerning (space between characters) is set down very precisely, so that the characters always appear perfectly joined up. You would also have to ensure that every combination of characters would look perfectly joined up, which is very difficult without having to spend hours post-editing the script on your computer.

So, unless you’re looking for a headache, it’s recommended that you look to digitise handwriting that is not cursive. Instead, it should have stand-alone characters that will not need to be refined to correspond precisely with any given neighbouring character. 

Luckily, I often use a different variation of my handwriting, usually for annotating documents or writing quick notes. It’s all set in uppercase, and is not joined up. It too has a slight italic slant.

Pick out a short passage from a book, and copy out the text onto lined paper using your natural handwriting style. While doing your best to keep the writing natural, try to make sure the characters are not joined up or touching too much. It doesn’t matter if you mix upper- and lowercase letters. But note, if you want to do that, you will have to eventually create a full set of uppercase characters and a full set of lowercase characters.

You can also practice writing out a few symbols, such as exclamation marks or brackets.

You can use this book passage as a useful reference for when you start to create your final handwriting sample. It doesn’t always feel natural to write individual characters, in an A to Z order, so you can look over to the passage and see how you created a ‘G’ or an ‘F’, for example, when you were writing in a flowing, natural way.

Step 2

Return to your drawing paper. Take your pencil and ruler and, following Steps 1 and 2 of Part One of the tutorial (above), draw a sequence of three lines, representing the cap height, x-height and baseline. 

In Part One, we created a group of lines that measured 30 mm in total height. However, if you tried to write naturally at this scale, you would certainly struggle! Reduce the total height between the Cap Height and Baseline to 6 mm; mark out the top 2 mm third of that to show the x-height. 

You might even find that this is still too large to allow you to write naturally without straining. Write a couple of characters onto the paper, to see what size you naturally write your characters. 

Reduce the total height to 4 or 5 mm if you’re more comfortable writing at a smaller scale.

Repeat the sequence of lines until you have filled the page.

Step 3

Take your ink pen (the black ink will create good contrast for scanning later on) and rotate the paper just a little anti-clockwise. This is to avoid straining the arm too much as you write.

At the same pace you would normally write, write the uppercase characters from A to Z in one go, along the same line if you have room. 

If you make any mistakes, simply try again on the next line down. But don’t worry about any minor errors or quirks in the writing. You want the writing to look organic and natural, and perfecting it too much will get rid of that.

Referring back to the list of characters we noted in Part One of the tutorial, write down other characters in the same natural style, and at the same scale. If you want to, you can also write a set of lowercase letters, a to z, as well.

Step 4

Allow the ink to dry completely, and then take an eraser and carefully rub out the pencil lines around the characters so that you are left with a lovely set of clean characters, ready to be scanned.

3. Scanning and Digitising Your Font

For this final part of the tutorial you will need:

• a scanner (or alternatively a tripod and digital camera)
• Adobe Illustrator
• access to a font editor/conversion software programme, e.g. FontLab Studio or Glyphs (you can get a free 30-day trial of Glyphs, and a mini version is available on Mac apps)

Note: We’ll take you through the process of using Glyphs in this tutorial, but there are loads of great type editing programmes out there. I personally find Glyphs to be very user-friendly, but many typographers will also put forward strong cases for FontLab and RoboFont.

Step 1

Setting the scanner to a high dpi (I scanned at 1600 dpi), scan in your handwriting sample. 

Save the file as a TIFF or JPEG. Then open Adobe Illustrator and create a New Document.

Go to File > Place and select your scanned image. With the image selected, open the Image Trace panel (Window > Image Trace). With the Preview box checked, set the Mode to Black and White, and adjust the Threshold, Paths and Corners levels until you’re happy with the accuracy of the trace. Click Trace.

Then, with the image still selected, go to Object > Image Trace > Expand. As a final step, Control-Click (Mac OS) or Right-Click (Windows) > Ungroup. 

Now you need to get rid of all the white sections on the image. Open the Layers panel (Window > Layers) and create a new layer. Drag it down to sit the new layer below the image layer. Select the Rectangle Tool (M) and drag to create a rectangle that extends across the whole artboard. Set the Fill to a contrasting bright color.

Now you can see more easily where there is white on the image. Select the white area around the outside and delete. Select the smaller white areas inside the bowls and counters of characters, and delete.

You’ve successfully vectorized your handwriting, great work! 

Step 2

Now open your font editing software. Here, I’m going to take you through the process of digitising your handwritten font using Glyphs.

Go to File > New to create a new Glyphs font. On the left-hand side of the Glyphs window that opens you’ll see a menu of options, listing groups of characters you can add to the font. 

Click Letter to view the full set of menu options. To insert uppercase letters, select Uppercase. A full set of uppercase characters, from A to Z, appears in the window.

Double-click a character to edit it directly. 

Hop back over to Illustrator and select the relevant vector character. Go to Edit > Copy.

Return to Glyphs, and go to Edit > Paste. Glyphs will place the vector in the window, ready for you to scale and adjust. The numeric values at the bottom of the screen are editable, allowing you to adjust the space to the left and right sides of the character, affecting the kerning. 

To the left of the window you can see ‘-’ and ‘+’ symbols, which allow you to scale the character. You can also manually adjust the scale, using the Scale (S) tool accessible in the tools panel running along the top of the window.

You should use the guides on the screen as a guide, sitting the bottom of the character on the Baseline, and the top of the character (if it’s uppercase) meeting the Cap Height line.

Step 3

You can flick back to view the full set of characters by clicking the Font tab towards the top of the window.

Repeat the process above, double-clicking characters in Glyphs to open them, and flicking back and forth between Illustrator and Glyphs, copying and pasting characters across.

You can also start to add in other sorts of characters, using the left-hand menu in the Glyphs window. You will have to manually add Numbers and Punctuation marks, selecting them from the pop-out menus and selecting Generate.

Step 4

Once you’ve added in all the characters for your font you can give it a name. 

Go to File > Font Info to open a new window. 

Give the font a suitable name, and you can also add in additional details, such as your name, your website and your Copyright info. Once you’re done, simply close the window.

Step 5

Once you’ve edited the characters in your font you can export it as a digital font. 

Go to File > Export. 

Keep the default options as they are, to create an OpenType Font, then click Next. Save the font in a folder that’s easily searchable.

You can exit Glyphs and navigate to your chosen folder, to view the font file. 

You can then install this on your computer, as you would any standard .otf font.

Conclusion

Your handwritten font is now complete, and ready to use as a digital font across your own documents. Use it to add a personal touch to notes or annotations, or incorporate it into design layouts to make your artwork truly unique!

Let’s recap what lessons we’ve covered in this tutorial. We looked at:

• how to practice drawing type, and recognise common elements and rules across typefaces
• how to apply those drawing lessons to your own handwriting, optimising it for digitisation
• how to scan your artwork and vectorise it in Illustrator
• how to convert your vectors to a digital font, editing it using Glyphs or other font editing software

Awesome work! Have fun creating more of your own fonts—why not experiment with different hand-drawn or painted styles?

Post pobrano z: 15+ Corporate Brand Identity Packages—With Creative Designs

Are you branding your new business? Maybe you have a logo, but need to extend your corporate identity design into business cards, letterheads, and more? Or, does your current brand need a quick refresh? 

Customers expect your brand identity to be professionally designed and consistent across all media. You don’t want your branding materials to feel dated, lack visual appeal, or appear carelessly constructed. That reflects poorly on your business. 

Now’s a great time to update your identity design materials or create a new set. You want a letterhead that matches all of your stationery. So, whether you hand a customer your business card or a sales invoice, they feel the same brand design reaching across all of your company’s identity.

If you’re not sure how to take your existing brand and expand it across multiple media, or you’re pressed for time, then what you need is a brand identity package.

And if you’re a designer or marketer that helps small businesses with their branding, then these identity templates are a great way to quickly create a quality solution—especially if your project is on a tight deadline.

With a professional brand identity package, you get a great set of corporate identity designs that are easy to customize, and ready to put to use in your business.

The Best Brand Identity Package on Envato Elements (With Unlimited Use)

Discover thousands of the best brand identity template packages on Envato Elements, with a great offer: download as many as you want for one low price.

Each of these awesome corporate identity packages from Envato Elements has tons of professional and creative design options. While stacked with pro design features, and great visuals to choose from, they’re also quick and easy to work with.

Grab one of these identity packages to help you present your personal or company brand in a clear and attractive manner to your audience. Regardless of the size of your company a full stationery set is crucial to give a modern and organized look to your brand.

All these brand identity packages (featured below) have unique designs that work cohesively together as a systematic set. They come with multiple branded components, such as:

• modern stationery designs,
• pro letterhead templates,
• organized invoices,
• branded business cards,
• stylish envelopes, and
• creative folders.

And many include additional items like attractive DVD cases, compliment slips, Facebook timeline covers, iPhone and desktop wallpapers, and more. With professional identity materials there’s no limit to what you can extend your brand into.

A quality brand distinguishes a business in the market. You want yours to stand out with a creative design. Get an impactful brand—one designed professionally—then expand it across print and multiple media. These full stationery template sets can help you do just that. Just add your logo, tagline, contact details, images, and any other required visual graphics and you’re all set to print.

Brand Identity Packages (New From Envato Elements – For 2018)

Here are a handful of graphic design stationary packages with creative and professional designs to represent your brand that are trending on Envato Elements:

1. Architecture – Awesome Corporate Identity Package

Architecture Corporate Identity Package is suitable for architecture, engineering and construction firms.

This ready-to-use corporate identity design set is inspired by urban landscapes and is illustrated by a fine, continuous line that follows the outline of a city, ranging from residential buildings, office buildings, and finishing with industrial structures. This highlights the versatility of an architectural firm that can build projects for any type of building.

This architecture corporate identity package is simple to edit and it can be easily customized to meet your business needs.

2. Interactive Corporate Branding Identity Package

This professional branding identity is suitable for any kind of corporate business. These fully editable vector files allow you to adapt the design to suit your needs. This full stationary set includes web assets like: 

• Facebook Timeline Cover: 851×315 px
• iPhone & Samsung Screen: various sizes
• Screen Wallpaper (HD included): various sizes

3. Motion – Modern Corporate Branding Materials

The motion corporate branding materials are a minimalist and elegant set of identity package design templates. The fully editable vector files allow you to adapt the design to suit your needs. Includes designs in numerous professionals size standards. The set contains only graphic files presented visual identification. They are editable projects files in AI, EPS, PDF format. The set, includs a professional logo design as well.

4. Fashion Graphic Design Stationary Package

Fashion Graphic Design Stationary Package is an Illustrator and Indesign template for product fashion retailers or companies to provide your promotional products. Clean, simple and modern corporate identity templates, perfect for retails product or corporate use. These files are simple to work with. Just drop in your own images and text, and it’s ready. Includes template for fashion tote bag as well.

5. Rose Gold – Corporate Branding Kit Template

Packed with loads of professionally designed Photoshop templates to help you save time and stand out from the crowd. This branding kit template package also includes two seamless patterns of the colors and backgrounds used for all the templates; grey linen and rose gold foil (12x12in, 30dpi, RGB). Free fonts download links are also provided.  

Envato Elements (Design Without Limits)

Envato Elements has a single compelling (all inclusive) offer:

Sign up for Envato Elements and you get access to thousands of creative graphics and templates (with unlimited use), from stock images to branding materials, and more—all for one low price.

That’s right! Download as many creative templates and graphics as you want, then customize them to fit any of your project needs.

While Envato Elements is a powerful option, if you prefer to buy new corporate branding materials one at a time (instead of getting unlimited access to hundreds of creative designs), check out the selection from our Envato Market below.

The Best Brand Identity Design Packages on Envato Market (Buy It One At A Time)

We also have you covered if you need to buy a branding template set one at a time, in our graphic design stationary package category on GraphicRiver, which is part of our Envato Market. 

Here are a few creative examples from our best selling identity package design templates from the last year (2018).

10+ Top Tier Brand Identity Package Sets
(Designs From Envato Market – For 2018)

Here are a number of the best corporate identity packages. These brand identity templates all have beautiful designs, a number of identity design file types, and multiple design styles to choose from. Each is set up for common print-ready formats. You can edit them in Photoshop or Illustrator, add your custom details, and get them off to the printers quickly.

1. Corporate Brand Identity Design Template

If you need a corporate identity template with a fresh design, then this set is a great choice. It includes corporate stationery design with letterhead, business card, envelopes, and folder. It has a minimal design with a splash of triangular color. Your logo could readily be placed on these identity assets. And you can edit the layers, text, or colors easily with one click!

2. Cool Modern Triangles Stationery Pack

This set of modern stationery has a cool design, which is great if you’re launching a new company or refreshing your existing branding materials. Whether you need to get venture funding or market your business better, this brand identity package is a great choice. The files are setup in Illustrator and are ready to add your brand, customize, and print.

3. Triad – Stationery Identity Branding Kit Template Set

Triad is a minimal stationary set. Whether for a high-end salon or architectural firm, this branding set makes a big impact with simple design aesthetics. It comes with a full stationery set of letterheads, envelopes, and double-sided business cards. The files are layered professionally in Photoshop, so you can readily customize them to your brand.

4. Colorful Abstract Stationery Template Set

If your company is highly creative, then this identity set was made for you. Whether you run a motion graphics studio or a marketing company this brand kit is setup and ready to put to use. It features a vibrant design against a minimal layout. Your logo can fit right in with this colorful corporate stationery set!

5. Corporate Identity Package Design – Financial Group

This set of corporate stationery has all the assets you’d expect for a traditional print brand identity, but it also includes related web assets. It’s a fully-packed corporate brand identity template set.

It features an exciting swooping three-dimensional design that carries across multiple-media. Whether you’re a financial group, web development company, or a new startup, this is an innovative set of professional identity designs for your growing business.

6. Minimal Black and White Full Stationery Set

If your business is more craft than corporate, or you want your business to have an authentic feel, then this is the best stationery template set for you. It features a professional, minimal style design, with a crafted appeal.

Whether you run a furniture store or handcraft your own wooden art pieces, this brand identity design has what you need. It’s a simple design that works for many purposes. It comes with letterhead, business card, envelope, and presentation folder. It’s easy to adopt and customize to your business!

7. Professional Corporate Identity Stationery Pack

This is a professional, striking corporate identity package. Save time with using this branding kit template set to extend your business brand. All the files are fully-layered and editable. It’s set up for professional printing with 300DPI print-ready files. And the files come in both Photoshop PSD and Illustrator AI/EPS formats. If you want to change the color scheme, add your text, insert your logo, it’s easy to do with this brand identity template set.

8. Colorful Pattern Stationery Design Templates

If you run a creative business, then you need a expressive stationery package. This is a clean, modern design with colorful branding elements. It’s great for a design company or a financial company that wants to stand out in the market.

All of the items are easy to edit. You can readily insert your logo, tagline, and contact details into this energetic set. Extend your brand with this vibrant pattern stationery set!

9. Corporate Identity Brand Design Set – Digital Cycle

Present yourself with professional creative style to your customers. This corporate identity package design has a full set of stationery for your traditional print media, as well as modern web assets, like Facebook timeline cover and branded wallpapers. It’s designed to represent an innovative digital company across multiple-media types. All the design files are 100% vector, so easy to edit and customize for your business.

10. Abstract Colorful Stationery Design Set

This set of colorful corporate branding materials is made to brand a creative company. If you’re a millennial company or a fresh startup, and in need of a vibrant identity, then this template set is made for your business. The high-energy design elements are set against a clean minimal design.

You can add your logo or even simply your company name, and have a colorful stationery set ready to brand your business with flair and pop! Another option is to purchase additional matching brand items: such as Abstract Modern Brochure or Abstract Colorful Trifold Brochure.

11. Viorous Corporate Stationery Brand Identity

This is a giant corporate stationery identity design set. It also includes a number of additional files that will help you carry your brand further into wallpapers and digital media. There are 36 files in total. All the layers are vector shapes, set up for easy customization and editing. It’s a beautiful design, with striking colors, and made for any company that wants a professional creative identity!

How to Extend Your Brand Identity Design  

A fresh identity with new corporate stationery and extended media allows you to represent your brand professionally. Your business is your baby. It’s what you’ve put all your blood, sweat, time—and even more sweat into! Your brand matters. It’s how your customers relate to your company and remember you. If you want your business to be successful, it’s a must to invest in a top-shelf brand identity.

Let’s look at how to extend your brand beyond your logo. You’re looking to build a business that grows. Let’s set your brand up for that success you’re aiming for. Here are a few steps to take your brand from that little spark of a logo into a more fully-realized brand identity.

1. Take Stock of Your Existing Brand

Before deciding on a brand identity package, it’s important to look at your existing brand. For a refresher, we have an article that covers all aspects of branding:

• 
  Branding
  What Is Branding?
  Julia Melymbrose

You want your stationery and media branding assets to compliment your existing business brand. It’s a package that needs to work together to represent your company. Consistency is critical.

You can have variations across your brand, but there needs to be a visual glue that holds it all together. And you can absolutely be creative, but you want to make sure your existing logo fits well, and your fonts and colors are used appropriately.

If you already have a logo, then choose an identity set that will work well with it. Or if you don’t have a logo we have logo templates as well or designers that can help you custom design a logo.

Any one of the templates above could be just the right fit for expanding your brand. If you want to browse through more options though, just jump over to our corporate identity templates on GraphicRiver or a brand identity design set on Envato Elements.

2. Customize Your Identity Design

Once you’ve chosen your brand identity template, now it’s time to customize your stationery set, prep it for print, and get your new corporate branding materials printed on high-quality paper.

You’ll need Photoshop or Illustrator to work with these template files. All of our templates on GraphicRiver are designed to be easy to customize. You can just add your company contact info to your business cards, drag your logo into the appropriate layer on the template, and make adjustments to fit your brand, like tweaking color choices or changing out fonts. 

The files are already set up to print professionally, so when you’re ready just get them off to the printers. Learn more about how to design your brand identity: 

• 
  Branding
  How to Design a New Brand Identity for Your Business
  Grace Fussell

Also, as you customize your brand you want to make sure you’re working within your company’s brand guidelines. 

If you need help with customizing your identity design package or crafting your brand guidelines, we have professional graphic designers at our Envato Studio that you can work with. They have the experience and know how to get the job done right!

3. Market Your New Identity Set

With your new identity materials back from the printers, now it’s time to put your new brand identity materials to work for your business. Start using your new letterhead and branded envelopes to craft sales letters to potential customers. Hand out your business card to new important contacts you meet.

Keep in mind, these new brand materials are made to market your business, so get them out there and working. Your new brand material will also help retain your existing customers. The professional your invoices look, the more seriously your business will be taken, and the quicker you’ll get paid.

Also, if you’re a designer or marketer, then help your client choose the best identity design for their branding needs. And advise them on how to integrate their new materials into their marketing plan.

Level-Up Your Branding With an Identity Package!

Don’t wait to expand your brand! It’s important to have the right creative branding representing your company. Your business will be seen as higher quality, you’ll make more connections with potential customers, and it will help you grow quicker. 

Browse through our wide selection of corporate identity design packages from Envato Elements. Or discover more from Envato Market’s best selling stationary and design templates. Professional brand materials will help your business stand out. Grab one that’s the best fit for your flourishing small business.

Post pobrano z: 15+ Corporate Brand Identity Packages—With Creative Designs

Are you branding your new business? Maybe you have a logo, but need to extend your corporate identity design into business cards, letterheads, and more? Or, does your current brand need a quick refresh? 

Customers expect your brand identity to be professionally designed and consistent across all media. You don’t want your branding materials to feel dated, lack visual appeal, or appear carelessly constructed. That reflects poorly on your business. 

Now’s a great time to update your identity design materials or create a new set. You want a letterhead that matches all of your stationery. So, whether you hand a customer your business card or a sales invoice, they feel the same brand design reaching across all of your company’s identity.

If you’re not sure how to take your existing brand and expand it across multiple media, or you’re pressed for time, then what you need is a brand identity package.

And if you’re a designer or marketer that helps small businesses with their branding, then these identity templates are a great way to quickly create a quality solution—especially if your project is on a tight deadline.

With a professional brand identity package, you get a great set of corporate identity designs that are easy to customize, and ready to put to use in your business.

The Best Brand Identity Package on Envato Elements (With Unlimited Use)

Discover thousands of the best brand identity template packages on Envato Elements, with a great offer: download as many as you want for one low price.

Each of these awesome corporate identity packages from Envato Elements has tons of professional and creative design options. While stacked with pro design features, and great visuals to choose from, they’re also quick and easy to work with.

Grab one of these identity packages to help you present your personal or company brand in a clear and attractive manner to your audience. Regardless of the size of your company a full stationery set is crucial to give a modern and organized look to your brand.

All these brand identity packages (featured below) have unique designs that work cohesively together as a systematic set. They come with multiple branded components, such as:

• modern stationery designs,
• pro letterhead templates,
• organized invoices,
• branded business cards,
• stylish envelopes, and
• creative folders.

And many include additional items like attractive DVD cases, compliment slips, Facebook timeline covers, iPhone and desktop wallpapers, and more. With professional identity materials there’s no limit to what you can extend your brand into.

A quality brand distinguishes a business in the market. You want yours to stand out with a creative design. Get an impactful brand—one designed professionally—then expand it across print and multiple media. These full stationery template sets can help you do just that. Just add your logo, tagline, contact details, images, and any other required visual graphics and you’re all set to print.

Brand Identity Packages (New From Envato Elements – For 2018)

Here are a handful of graphic design stationary packages with creative and professional designs to represent your brand that are trending on Envato Elements:

1. Architecture – Awesome Corporate Identity Package

Architecture Corporate Identity Package is suitable for architecture, engineering and construction firms.

This ready-to-use corporate identity design set is inspired by urban landscapes and is illustrated by a fine, continuous line that follows the outline of a city, ranging from residential buildings, office buildings, and finishing with industrial structures. This highlights the versatility of an architectural firm that can build projects for any type of building.

This architecture corporate identity package is simple to edit and it can be easily customized to meet your business needs.

2. Interactive Corporate Branding Identity Package

This professional branding identity is suitable for any kind of corporate business. These fully editable vector files allow you to adapt the design to suit your needs. This full stationary set includes web assets like: 

• Facebook Timeline Cover: 851×315 px
• iPhone & Samsung Screen: various sizes
• Screen Wallpaper (HD included): various sizes

3. Motion – Modern Corporate Branding Materials

The motion corporate branding materials are a minimalist and elegant set of identity package design templates. The fully editable vector files allow you to adapt the design to suit your needs. Includes designs in numerous professionals size standards. The set contains only graphic files presented visual identification. They are editable projects files in AI, EPS, PDF format. The set, includs a professional logo design as well.

4. Fashion Graphic Design Stationary Package

Fashion Graphic Design Stationary Package is an Illustrator and Indesign template for product fashion retailers or companies to provide your promotional products. Clean, simple and modern corporate identity templates, perfect for retails product or corporate use. These files are simple to work with. Just drop in your own images and text, and it’s ready. Includes template for fashion tote bag as well.

5. Rose Gold – Corporate Branding Kit Template

Packed with loads of professionally designed Photoshop templates to help you save time and stand out from the crowd. This branding kit template package also includes two seamless patterns of the colors and backgrounds used for all the templates; grey linen and rose gold foil (12x12in, 30dpi, RGB). Free fonts download links are also provided.  

Envato Elements (Design Without Limits)

Envato Elements has a single compelling (all inclusive) offer:

Sign up for Envato Elements and you get access to thousands of creative graphics and templates (with unlimited use), from stock images to branding materials, and more—all for one low price.

That’s right! Download as many creative templates and graphics as you want, then customize them to fit any of your project needs.

While Envato Elements is a powerful option, if you prefer to buy new corporate branding materials one at a time (instead of getting unlimited access to hundreds of creative designs), check out the selection from our Envato Market below.

The Best Brand Identity Design Packages on Envato Market (Buy It One At A Time)

We also have you covered if you need to buy a branding template set one at a time, in our graphic design stationary package category on GraphicRiver, which is part of our Envato Market. 

Here are a few creative examples from our best selling identity package design templates from the last year (2018).

10+ Top Tier Brand Identity Package Sets
(Designs From Envato Market – For 2018)

Here are a number of the best corporate identity packages. These brand identity templates all have beautiful designs, a number of identity design file types, and multiple design styles to choose from. Each is set up for common print-ready formats. You can edit them in Photoshop or Illustrator, add your custom details, and get them off to the printers quickly.

1. Corporate Brand Identity Design Template

If you need a corporate identity template with a fresh design, then this set is a great choice. It includes corporate stationery design with letterhead, business card, envelopes, and folder. It has a minimal design with a splash of triangular color. Your logo could readily be placed on these identity assets. And you can edit the layers, text, or colors easily with one click!

2. Cool Modern Triangles Stationery Pack

This set of modern stationery has a cool design, which is great if you’re launching a new company or refreshing your existing branding materials. Whether you need to get venture funding or market your business better, this brand identity package is a great choice. The files are setup in Illustrator and are ready to add your brand, customize, and print.

3. Triad – Stationery Identity Branding Kit Template Set

Triad is a minimal stationary set. Whether for a high-end salon or architectural firm, this branding set makes a big impact with simple design aesthetics. It comes with a full stationery set of letterheads, envelopes, and double-sided business cards. The files are layered professionally in Photoshop, so you can readily customize them to your brand.

4. Colorful Abstract Stationery Template Set

If your company is highly creative, then this identity set was made for you. Whether you run a motion graphics studio or a marketing company this brand kit is setup and ready to put to use. It features a vibrant design against a minimal layout. Your logo can fit right in with this colorful corporate stationery set!

5. Corporate Identity Package Design – Financial Group

This set of corporate stationery has all the assets you’d expect for a traditional print brand identity, but it also includes related web assets. It’s a fully-packed corporate brand identity template set.

It features an exciting swooping three-dimensional design that carries across multiple-media. Whether you’re a financial group, web development company, or a new startup, this is an innovative set of professional identity designs for your growing business.

6. Minimal Black and White Full Stationery Set

If your business is more craft than corporate, or you want your business to have an authentic feel, then this is the best stationery template set for you. It features a professional, minimal style design, with a crafted appeal.

Whether you run a furniture store or handcraft your own wooden art pieces, this brand identity design has what you need. It’s a simple design that works for many purposes. It comes with letterhead, business card, envelope, and presentation folder. It’s easy to adopt and customize to your business!

7. Professional Corporate Identity Stationery Pack

This is a professional, striking corporate identity package. Save time with using this branding kit template set to extend your business brand. All the files are fully-layered and editable. It’s set up for professional printing with 300DPI print-ready files. And the files come in both Photoshop PSD and Illustrator AI/EPS formats. If you want to change the color scheme, add your text, insert your logo, it’s easy to do with this brand identity template set.

8. Colorful Pattern Stationery Design Templates

If you run a creative business, then you need a expressive stationery package. This is a clean, modern design with colorful branding elements. It’s great for a design company or a financial company that wants to stand out in the market.

All of the items are easy to edit. You can readily insert your logo, tagline, and contact details into this energetic set. Extend your brand with this vibrant pattern stationery set!

9. Corporate Identity Brand Design Set – Digital Cycle

Present yourself with professional creative style to your customers. This corporate identity package design has a full set of stationery for your traditional print media, as well as modern web assets, like Facebook timeline cover and branded wallpapers. It’s designed to represent an innovative digital company across multiple-media types. All the design files are 100% vector, so easy to edit and customize for your business.

10. Abstract Colorful Stationery Design Set

This set of colorful corporate branding materials is made to brand a creative company. If you’re a millennial company or a fresh startup, and in need of a vibrant identity, then this template set is made for your business. The high-energy design elements are set against a clean minimal design.

You can add your logo or even simply your company name, and have a colorful stationery set ready to brand your business with flair and pop! Another option is to purchase additional matching brand items: such as Abstract Modern Brochure or Abstract Colorful Trifold Brochure.

11. Viorous Corporate Stationery Brand Identity

This is a giant corporate stationery identity design set. It also includes a number of additional files that will help you carry your brand further into wallpapers and digital media. There are 36 files in total. All the layers are vector shapes, set up for easy customization and editing. It’s a beautiful design, with striking colors, and made for any company that wants a professional creative identity!

How to Extend Your Brand Identity Design  

A fresh identity with new corporate stationery and extended media allows you to represent your brand professionally. Your business is your baby. It’s what you’ve put all your blood, sweat, time—and even more sweat into! Your brand matters. It’s how your customers relate to your company and remember you. If you want your business to be successful, it’s a must to invest in a top-shelf brand identity.

Let’s look at how to extend your brand beyond your logo. You’re looking to build a business that grows. Let’s set your brand up for that success you’re aiming for. Here are a few steps to take your brand from that little spark of a logo into a more fully-realized brand identity.

1. Take Stock of Your Existing Brand

Before deciding on a brand identity package, it’s important to look at your existing brand. For a refresher, we have an article that covers all aspects of branding:

• 
  Branding
  What Is Branding?
  Julia Melymbrose

You want your stationery and media branding assets to compliment your existing business brand. It’s a package that needs to work together to represent your company. Consistency is critical.

You can have variations across your brand, but there needs to be a visual glue that holds it all together. And you can absolutely be creative, but you want to make sure your existing logo fits well, and your fonts and colors are used appropriately.

If you already have a logo, then choose an identity set that will work well with it. Or if you don’t have a logo we have logo templates as well or designers that can help you custom design a logo.

Any one of the templates above could be just the right fit for expanding your brand. If you want to browse through more options though, just jump over to our corporate identity templates on GraphicRiver or a brand identity design set on Envato Elements.

2. Customize Your Identity Design

Once you’ve chosen your brand identity template, now it’s time to customize your stationery set, prep it for print, and get your new corporate branding materials printed on high-quality paper.

You’ll need Photoshop or Illustrator to work with these template files. All of our templates on GraphicRiver are designed to be easy to customize. You can just add your company contact info to your business cards, drag your logo into the appropriate layer on the template, and make adjustments to fit your brand, like tweaking color choices or changing out fonts. 

The files are already set up to print professionally, so when you’re ready just get them off to the printers. Learn more about how to design your brand identity: 

• 
  Branding
  How to Design a New Brand Identity for Your Business
  Grace Fussell

Also, as you customize your brand you want to make sure you’re working within your company’s brand guidelines. 

If you need help with customizing your identity design package or crafting your brand guidelines, we have professional graphic designers at our Envato Studio that you can work with. They have the experience and know how to get the job done right!

3. Market Your New Identity Set

With your new identity materials back from the printers, now it’s time to put your new brand identity materials to work for your business. Start using your new letterhead and branded envelopes to craft sales letters to potential customers. Hand out your business card to new important contacts you meet.

Keep in mind, these new brand materials are made to market your business, so get them out there and working. Your new brand material will also help retain your existing customers. The professional your invoices look, the more seriously your business will be taken, and the quicker you’ll get paid.

Also, if you’re a designer or marketer, then help your client choose the best identity design for their branding needs. And advise them on how to integrate their new materials into their marketing plan.

Level-Up Your Branding With an Identity Package!

Don’t wait to expand your brand! It’s important to have the right creative branding representing your company. Your business will be seen as higher quality, you’ll make more connections with potential customers, and it will help you grow quicker. 

Browse through our wide selection of corporate identity design packages from Envato Elements. Or discover more from Envato Market’s best selling stationary and design templates. Professional brand materials will help your business stand out. Grab one that’s the best fit for your flourishing small business.

Post pobrano z: 15+ Corporate Brand Identity Packages—With Creative Designs

Are you branding your new business? Maybe you have a logo, but need to extend your corporate identity design into business cards, letterheads, and more? Or, does your current brand need a quick refresh? 

Customers expect your brand identity to be professionally designed and consistent across all media. You don’t want your branding materials to feel dated, lack visual appeal, or appear carelessly constructed. That reflects poorly on your business. 

Now’s a great time to update your identity design materials or create a new set. You want a letterhead that matches all of your stationery. So, whether you hand a customer your business card or a sales invoice, they feel the same brand design reaching across all of your company’s identity.

If you’re not sure how to take your existing brand and expand it across multiple media, or you’re pressed for time, then what you need is a brand identity package.

And if you’re a designer or marketer that helps small businesses with their branding, then these identity templates are a great way to quickly create a quality solution—especially if your project is on a tight deadline.

With a professional brand identity package, you get a great set of corporate identity designs that are easy to customize, and ready to put to use in your business.

The Best Brand Identity Package on Envato Elements (With Unlimited Use)

Discover thousands of the best brand identity template packages on Envato Elements, with a great offer: download as many as you want for one low price.

Each of these awesome corporate identity packages from Envato Elements has tons of professional and creative design options. While stacked with pro design features, and great visuals to choose from, they’re also quick and easy to work with.

Grab one of these identity packages to help you present your personal or company brand in a clear and attractive manner to your audience. Regardless of the size of your company a full stationery set is crucial to give a modern and organized look to your brand.

All these brand identity packages (featured below) have unique designs that work cohesively together as a systematic set. They come with multiple branded components, such as:

• modern stationery designs,
• pro letterhead templates,
• organized invoices,
• branded business cards,
• stylish envelopes, and
• creative folders.

And many include additional items like attractive DVD cases, compliment slips, Facebook timeline covers, iPhone and desktop wallpapers, and more. With professional identity materials there’s no limit to what you can extend your brand into.

A quality brand distinguishes a business in the market. You want yours to stand out with a creative design. Get an impactful brand—one designed professionally—then expand it across print and multiple media. These full stationery template sets can help you do just that. Just add your logo, tagline, contact details, images, and any other required visual graphics and you’re all set to print.

Brand Identity Packages (New From Envato Elements – For 2018)

Here are a handful of graphic design stationary packages with creative and professional designs to represent your brand that are trending on Envato Elements:

1. Architecture – Awesome Corporate Identity Package

Architecture Corporate Identity Package is suitable for architecture, engineering and construction firms.

This ready-to-use corporate identity design set is inspired by urban landscapes and is illustrated by a fine, continuous line that follows the outline of a city, ranging from residential buildings, office buildings, and finishing with industrial structures. This highlights the versatility of an architectural firm that can build projects for any type of building.

This architecture corporate identity package is simple to edit and it can be easily customized to meet your business needs.

2. Interactive Corporate Branding Identity Package

This professional branding identity is suitable for any kind of corporate business. These fully editable vector files allow you to adapt the design to suit your needs. This full stationary set includes web assets like: 

• Facebook Timeline Cover: 851×315 px
• iPhone & Samsung Screen: various sizes
• Screen Wallpaper (HD included): various sizes

3. Motion – Modern Corporate Branding Materials

The motion corporate branding materials are a minimalist and elegant set of identity package design templates. The fully editable vector files allow you to adapt the design to suit your needs. Includes designs in numerous professionals size standards. The set contains only graphic files presented visual identification. They are editable projects files in AI, EPS, PDF format. The set, includs a professional logo design as well.

4. Fashion Graphic Design Stationary Package

Fashion Graphic Design Stationary Package is an Illustrator and Indesign template for product fashion retailers or companies to provide your promotional products. Clean, simple and modern corporate identity templates, perfect for retails product or corporate use. These files are simple to work with. Just drop in your own images and text, and it’s ready. Includes template for fashion tote bag as well.

5. Rose Gold – Corporate Branding Kit Template

Packed with loads of professionally designed Photoshop templates to help you save time and stand out from the crowd. This branding kit template package also includes two seamless patterns of the colors and backgrounds used for all the templates; grey linen and rose gold foil (12x12in, 30dpi, RGB). Free fonts download links are also provided.  

Envato Elements (Design Without Limits)

Envato Elements has a single compelling (all inclusive) offer:

Sign up for Envato Elements and you get access to thousands of creative graphics and templates (with unlimited use), from stock images to branding materials, and more—all for one low price.

That’s right! Download as many creative templates and graphics as you want, then customize them to fit any of your project needs.

While Envato Elements is a powerful option, if you prefer to buy new corporate branding materials one at a time (instead of getting unlimited access to hundreds of creative designs), check out the selection from our Envato Market below.

The Best Brand Identity Design Packages on Envato Market (Buy It One At A Time)

We also have you covered if you need to buy a branding template set one at a time, in our graphic design stationary package category on GraphicRiver, which is part of our Envato Market. 

Here are a few creative examples from our best selling identity package design templates from the last year (2018).

10+ Top Tier Brand Identity Package Sets
(Designs From Envato Market – For 2018)

Here are a number of the best corporate identity packages. These brand identity templates all have beautiful designs, a number of identity design file types, and multiple design styles to choose from. Each is set up for common print-ready formats. You can edit them in Photoshop or Illustrator, add your custom details, and get them off to the printers quickly.

1. Corporate Brand Identity Design Template

If you need a corporate identity template with a fresh design, then this set is a great choice. It includes corporate stationery design with letterhead, business card, envelopes, and folder. It has a minimal design with a splash of triangular color. Your logo could readily be placed on these identity assets. And you can edit the layers, text, or colors easily with one click!

2. Cool Modern Triangles Stationery Pack

This set of modern stationery has a cool design, which is great if you’re launching a new company or refreshing your existing branding materials. Whether you need to get venture funding or market your business better, this brand identity package is a great choice. The files are setup in Illustrator and are ready to add your brand, customize, and print.

3. Triad – Stationery Identity Branding Kit Template Set

Triad is a minimal stationary set. Whether for a high-end salon or architectural firm, this branding set makes a big impact with simple design aesthetics. It comes with a full stationery set of letterheads, envelopes, and double-sided business cards. The files are layered professionally in Photoshop, so you can readily customize them to your brand.

4. Colorful Abstract Stationery Template Set

If your company is highly creative, then this identity set was made for you. Whether you run a motion graphics studio or a marketing company this brand kit is setup and ready to put to use. It features a vibrant design against a minimal layout. Your logo can fit right in with this colorful corporate stationery set!

5. Corporate Identity Package Design – Financial Group

This set of corporate stationery has all the assets you’d expect for a traditional print brand identity, but it also includes related web assets. It’s a fully-packed corporate brand identity template set.

It features an exciting swooping three-dimensional design that carries across multiple-media. Whether you’re a financial group, web development company, or a new startup, this is an innovative set of professional identity designs for your growing business.

6. Minimal Black and White Full Stationery Set

If your business is more craft than corporate, or you want your business to have an authentic feel, then this is the best stationery template set for you. It features a professional, minimal style design, with a crafted appeal.

Whether you run a furniture store or handcraft your own wooden art pieces, this brand identity design has what you need. It’s a simple design that works for many purposes. It comes with letterhead, business card, envelope, and presentation folder. It’s easy to adopt and customize to your business!

7. Professional Corporate Identity Stationery Pack

This is a professional, striking corporate identity package. Save time with using this branding kit template set to extend your business brand. All the files are fully-layered and editable. It’s set up for professional printing with 300DPI print-ready files. And the files come in both Photoshop PSD and Illustrator AI/EPS formats. If you want to change the color scheme, add your text, insert your logo, it’s easy to do with this brand identity template set.

8. Colorful Pattern Stationery Design Templates

If you run a creative business, then you need a expressive stationery package. This is a clean, modern design with colorful branding elements. It’s great for a design company or a financial company that wants to stand out in the market.

All of the items are easy to edit. You can readily insert your logo, tagline, and contact details into this energetic set. Extend your brand with this vibrant pattern stationery set!

9. Corporate Identity Brand Design Set – Digital Cycle

Present yourself with professional creative style to your customers. This corporate identity package design has a full set of stationery for your traditional print media, as well as modern web assets, like Facebook timeline cover and branded wallpapers. It’s designed to represent an innovative digital company across multiple-media types. All the design files are 100% vector, so easy to edit and customize for your business.

10. Abstract Colorful Stationery Design Set

This set of colorful corporate branding materials is made to brand a creative company. If you’re a millennial company or a fresh startup, and in need of a vibrant identity, then this template set is made for your business. The high-energy design elements are set against a clean minimal design.

You can add your logo or even simply your company name, and have a colorful stationery set ready to brand your business with flair and pop! Another option is to purchase additional matching brand items: such as Abstract Modern Brochure or Abstract Colorful Trifold Brochure.

11. Viorous Corporate Stationery Brand Identity

This is a giant corporate stationery identity design set. It also includes a number of additional files that will help you carry your brand further into wallpapers and digital media. There are 36 files in total. All the layers are vector shapes, set up for easy customization and editing. It’s a beautiful design, with striking colors, and made for any company that wants a professional creative identity!

How to Extend Your Brand Identity Design  

A fresh identity with new corporate stationery and extended media allows you to represent your brand professionally. Your business is your baby. It’s what you’ve put all your blood, sweat, time—and even more sweat into! Your brand matters. It’s how your customers relate to your company and remember you. If you want your business to be successful, it’s a must to invest in a top-shelf brand identity.

Let’s look at how to extend your brand beyond your logo. You’re looking to build a business that grows. Let’s set your brand up for that success you’re aiming for. Here are a few steps to take your brand from that little spark of a logo into a more fully-realized brand identity.

1. Take Stock of Your Existing Brand

Before deciding on a brand identity package, it’s important to look at your existing brand. For a refresher, we have an article that covers all aspects of branding:

• 
  Branding
  What Is Branding?
  Julia Melymbrose

You want your stationery and media branding assets to compliment your existing business brand. It’s a package that needs to work together to represent your company. Consistency is critical.

You can have variations across your brand, but there needs to be a visual glue that holds it all together. And you can absolutely be creative, but you want to make sure your existing logo fits well, and your fonts and colors are used appropriately.

If you already have a logo, then choose an identity set that will work well with it. Or if you don’t have a logo we have logo templates as well or designers that can help you custom design a logo.

Any one of the templates above could be just the right fit for expanding your brand. If you want to browse through more options though, just jump over to our corporate identity templates on GraphicRiver or a brand identity design set on Envato Elements.

2. Customize Your Identity Design

Once you’ve chosen your brand identity template, now it’s time to customize your stationery set, prep it for print, and get your new corporate branding materials printed on high-quality paper.

You’ll need Photoshop or Illustrator to work with these template files. All of our templates on GraphicRiver are designed to be easy to customize. You can just add your company contact info to your business cards, drag your logo into the appropriate layer on the template, and make adjustments to fit your brand, like tweaking color choices or changing out fonts. 

The files are already set up to print professionally, so when you’re ready just get them off to the printers. Learn more about how to design your brand identity: 

• 
  Branding
  How to Design a New Brand Identity for Your Business
  Grace Fussell

Also, as you customize your brand you want to make sure you’re working within your company’s brand guidelines. 

If you need help with customizing your identity design package or crafting your brand guidelines, we have professional graphic designers at our Envato Studio that you can work with. They have the experience and know how to get the job done right!

3. Market Your New Identity Set

With your new identity materials back from the printers, now it’s time to put your new brand identity materials to work for your business. Start using your new letterhead and branded envelopes to craft sales letters to potential customers. Hand out your business card to new important contacts you meet.

Keep in mind, these new brand materials are made to market your business, so get them out there and working. Your new brand material will also help retain your existing customers. The professional your invoices look, the more seriously your business will be taken, and the quicker you’ll get paid.

Also, if you’re a designer or marketer, then help your client choose the best identity design for their branding needs. And advise them on how to integrate their new materials into their marketing plan.

Level-Up Your Branding With an Identity Package!

Don’t wait to expand your brand! It’s important to have the right creative branding representing your company. Your business will be seen as higher quality, you’ll make more connections with potential customers, and it will help you grow quicker. 

Browse through our wide selection of corporate identity design packages from Envato Elements. Or discover more from Envato Market’s best selling stationary and design templates. Professional brand materials will help your business stand out. Grab one that’s the best fit for your flourishing small business.

Post pobrano z: 15+ Corporate Brand Identity Packages—With Creative Designs

Are you branding your new business? Maybe you have a logo, but need to extend your corporate identity design into business cards, letterheads, and more? Or, does your current brand need a quick refresh? 

Customers expect your brand identity to be professionally designed and consistent across all media. You don’t want your branding materials to feel dated, lack visual appeal, or appear carelessly constructed. That reflects poorly on your business. 

Now’s a great time to update your identity design materials or create a new set. You want a letterhead that matches all of your stationery. So, whether you hand a customer your business card or a sales invoice, they feel the same brand design reaching across all of your company’s identity.

If you’re not sure how to take your existing brand and expand it across multiple media, or you’re pressed for time, then what you need is a brand identity package.

And if you’re a designer or marketer that helps small businesses with their branding, then these identity templates are a great way to quickly create a quality solution—especially if your project is on a tight deadline.

With a professional brand identity package, you get a great set of corporate identity designs that are easy to customize, and ready to put to use in your business.

The Best Brand Identity Package on Envato Elements (With Unlimited Use)

Discover thousands of the best brand identity template packages on Envato Elements, with a great offer: download as many as you want for one low price.

Each of these awesome corporate identity packages from Envato Elements has tons of professional and creative design options. While stacked with pro design features, and great visuals to choose from, they’re also quick and easy to work with.

Grab one of these identity packages to help you present your personal or company brand in a clear and attractive manner to your audience. Regardless of the size of your company a full stationery set is crucial to give a modern and organized look to your brand.

All these brand identity packages (featured below) have unique designs that work cohesively together as a systematic set. They come with multiple branded components, such as:

• modern stationery designs,
• pro letterhead templates,
• organized invoices,
• branded business cards,
• stylish envelopes, and
• creative folders.

And many include additional items like attractive DVD cases, compliment slips, Facebook timeline covers, iPhone and desktop wallpapers, and more. With professional identity materials there’s no limit to what you can extend your brand into.

A quality brand distinguishes a business in the market. You want yours to stand out with a creative design. Get an impactful brand—one designed professionally—then expand it across print and multiple media. These full stationery template sets can help you do just that. Just add your logo, tagline, contact details, images, and any other required visual graphics and you’re all set to print.

Brand Identity Packages (New From Envato Elements – For 2018)

Here are a handful of graphic design stationary packages with creative and professional designs to represent your brand that are trending on Envato Elements:

1. Architecture – Awesome Corporate Identity Package

Architecture Corporate Identity Package is suitable for architecture, engineering and construction firms.

This ready-to-use corporate identity design set is inspired by urban landscapes and is illustrated by a fine, continuous line that follows the outline of a city, ranging from residential buildings, office buildings, and finishing with industrial structures. This highlights the versatility of an architectural firm that can build projects for any type of building.

This architecture corporate identity package is simple to edit and it can be easily customized to meet your business needs.

2. Interactive Corporate Branding Identity Package

This professional branding identity is suitable for any kind of corporate business. These fully editable vector files allow you to adapt the design to suit your needs. This full stationary set includes web assets like: 

• Facebook Timeline Cover: 851×315 px
• iPhone & Samsung Screen: various sizes
• Screen Wallpaper (HD included): various sizes

3. Motion – Modern Corporate Branding Materials

The motion corporate branding materials are a minimalist and elegant set of identity package design templates. The fully editable vector files allow you to adapt the design to suit your needs. Includes designs in numerous professionals size standards. The set contains only graphic files presented visual identification. They are editable projects files in AI, EPS, PDF format. The set, includs a professional logo design as well.

4. Fashion Graphic Design Stationary Package

Fashion Graphic Design Stationary Package is an Illustrator and Indesign template for product fashion retailers or companies to provide your promotional products. Clean, simple and modern corporate identity templates, perfect for retails product or corporate use. These files are simple to work with. Just drop in your own images and text, and it’s ready. Includes template for fashion tote bag as well.

5. Rose Gold – Corporate Branding Kit Template

Packed with loads of professionally designed Photoshop templates to help you save time and stand out from the crowd. This branding kit template package also includes two seamless patterns of the colors and backgrounds used for all the templates; grey linen and rose gold foil (12x12in, 30dpi, RGB). Free fonts download links are also provided.  

Envato Elements (Design Without Limits)

Envato Elements has a single compelling (all inclusive) offer:

Sign up for Envato Elements and you get access to thousands of creative graphics and templates (with unlimited use), from stock images to branding materials, and more—all for one low price.

That’s right! Download as many creative templates and graphics as you want, then customize them to fit any of your project needs.

While Envato Elements is a powerful option, if you prefer to buy new corporate branding materials one at a time (instead of getting unlimited access to hundreds of creative designs), check out the selection from our Envato Market below.

The Best Brand Identity Design Packages on Envato Market (Buy It One At A Time)

We also have you covered if you need to buy a branding template set one at a time, in our graphic design stationary package category on GraphicRiver, which is part of our Envato Market. 

Here are a few creative examples from our best selling identity package design templates from the last year (2018).

10+ Top Tier Brand Identity Package Sets
(Designs From Envato Market – For 2018)

Here are a number of the best corporate identity packages. These brand identity templates all have beautiful designs, a number of identity design file types, and multiple design styles to choose from. Each is set up for common print-ready formats. You can edit them in Photoshop or Illustrator, add your custom details, and get them off to the printers quickly.

1. Corporate Brand Identity Design Template

If you need a corporate identity template with a fresh design, then this set is a great choice. It includes corporate stationery design with letterhead, business card, envelopes, and folder. It has a minimal design with a splash of triangular color. Your logo could readily be placed on these identity assets. And you can edit the layers, text, or colors easily with one click!

2. Cool Modern Triangles Stationery Pack

This set of modern stationery has a cool design, which is great if you’re launching a new company or refreshing your existing branding materials. Whether you need to get venture funding or market your business better, this brand identity package is a great choice. The files are setup in Illustrator and are ready to add your brand, customize, and print.

3. Triad – Stationery Identity Branding Kit Template Set

Triad is a minimal stationary set. Whether for a high-end salon or architectural firm, this branding set makes a big impact with simple design aesthetics. It comes with a full stationery set of letterheads, envelopes, and double-sided business cards. The files are layered professionally in Photoshop, so you can readily customize them to your brand.

4. Colorful Abstract Stationery Template Set

If your company is highly creative, then this identity set was made for you. Whether you run a motion graphics studio or a marketing company this brand kit is setup and ready to put to use. It features a vibrant design against a minimal layout. Your logo can fit right in with this colorful corporate stationery set!

5. Corporate Identity Package Design – Financial Group

This set of corporate stationery has all the assets you’d expect for a traditional print brand identity, but it also includes related web assets. It’s a fully-packed corporate brand identity template set.

It features an exciting swooping three-dimensional design that carries across multiple-media. Whether you’re a financial group, web development company, or a new startup, this is an innovative set of professional identity designs for your growing business.

6. Minimal Black and White Full Stationery Set

If your business is more craft than corporate, or you want your business to have an authentic feel, then this is the best stationery template set for you. It features a professional, minimal style design, with a crafted appeal.

Whether you run a furniture store or handcraft your own wooden art pieces, this brand identity design has what you need. It’s a simple design that works for many purposes. It comes with letterhead, business card, envelope, and presentation folder. It’s easy to adopt and customize to your business!

7. Professional Corporate Identity Stationery Pack

This is a professional, striking corporate identity package. Save time with using this branding kit template set to extend your business brand. All the files are fully-layered and editable. It’s set up for professional printing with 300DPI print-ready files. And the files come in both Photoshop PSD and Illustrator AI/EPS formats. If you want to change the color scheme, add your text, insert your logo, it’s easy to do with this brand identity template set.

8. Colorful Pattern Stationery Design Templates

If you run a creative business, then you need a expressive stationery package. This is a clean, modern design with colorful branding elements. It’s great for a design company or a financial company that wants to stand out in the market.

All of the items are easy to edit. You can readily insert your logo, tagline, and contact details into this energetic set. Extend your brand with this vibrant pattern stationery set!

9. Corporate Identity Brand Design Set – Digital Cycle

Present yourself with professional creative style to your customers. This corporate identity package design has a full set of stationery for your traditional print media, as well as modern web assets, like Facebook timeline cover and branded wallpapers. It’s designed to represent an innovative digital company across multiple-media types. All the design files are 100% vector, so easy to edit and customize for your business.

10. Abstract Colorful Stationery Design Set

This set of colorful corporate branding materials is made to brand a creative company. If you’re a millennial company or a fresh startup, and in need of a vibrant identity, then this template set is made for your business. The high-energy design elements are set against a clean minimal design.

You can add your logo or even simply your company name, and have a colorful stationery set ready to brand your business with flair and pop! Another option is to purchase additional matching brand items: such as Abstract Modern Brochure or Abstract Colorful Trifold Brochure.

11. Viorous Corporate Stationery Brand Identity

This is a giant corporate stationery identity design set. It also includes a number of additional files that will help you carry your brand further into wallpapers and digital media. There are 36 files in total. All the layers are vector shapes, set up for easy customization and editing. It’s a beautiful design, with striking colors, and made for any company that wants a professional creative identity!

How to Extend Your Brand Identity Design  

A fresh identity with new corporate stationery and extended media allows you to represent your brand professionally. Your business is your baby. It’s what you’ve put all your blood, sweat, time—and even more sweat into! Your brand matters. It’s how your customers relate to your company and remember you. If you want your business to be successful, it’s a must to invest in a top-shelf brand identity.

Let’s look at how to extend your brand beyond your logo. You’re looking to build a business that grows. Let’s set your brand up for that success you’re aiming for. Here are a few steps to take your brand from that little spark of a logo into a more fully-realized brand identity.

1. Take Stock of Your Existing Brand

Before deciding on a brand identity package, it’s important to look at your existing brand. For a refresher, we have an article that covers all aspects of branding:

• 
  Branding
  What Is Branding?
  Julia Melymbrose

You want your stationery and media branding assets to compliment your existing business brand. It’s a package that needs to work together to represent your company. Consistency is critical.

You can have variations across your brand, but there needs to be a visual glue that holds it all together. And you can absolutely be creative, but you want to make sure your existing logo fits well, and your fonts and colors are used appropriately.

If you already have a logo, then choose an identity set that will work well with it. Or if you don’t have a logo we have logo templates as well or designers that can help you custom design a logo.

Any one of the templates above could be just the right fit for expanding your brand. If you want to browse through more options though, just jump over to our corporate identity templates on GraphicRiver or a brand identity design set on Envato Elements.

2. Customize Your Identity Design

Once you’ve chosen your brand identity template, now it’s time to customize your stationery set, prep it for print, and get your new corporate branding materials printed on high-quality paper.

You’ll need Photoshop or Illustrator to work with these template files. All of our templates on GraphicRiver are designed to be easy to customize. You can just add your company contact info to your business cards, drag your logo into the appropriate layer on the template, and make adjustments to fit your brand, like tweaking color choices or changing out fonts. 

The files are already set up to print professionally, so when you’re ready just get them off to the printers. Learn more about how to design your brand identity: 

• 
  Branding
  How to Design a New Brand Identity for Your Business
  Grace Fussell

Also, as you customize your brand you want to make sure you’re working within your company’s brand guidelines. 

If you need help with customizing your identity design package or crafting your brand guidelines, we have professional graphic designers at our Envato Studio that you can work with. They have the experience and know how to get the job done right!

3. Market Your New Identity Set

With your new identity materials back from the printers, now it’s time to put your new brand identity materials to work for your business. Start using your new letterhead and branded envelopes to craft sales letters to potential customers. Hand out your business card to new important contacts you meet.

Keep in mind, these new brand materials are made to market your business, so get them out there and working. Your new brand material will also help retain your existing customers. The professional your invoices look, the more seriously your business will be taken, and the quicker you’ll get paid.

Also, if you’re a designer or marketer, then help your client choose the best identity design for their branding needs. And advise them on how to integrate their new materials into their marketing plan.

Level-Up Your Branding With an Identity Package!

Don’t wait to expand your brand! It’s important to have the right creative branding representing your company. Your business will be seen as higher quality, you’ll make more connections with potential customers, and it will help you grow quicker. 

Browse through our wide selection of corporate identity design packages from Envato Elements. Or discover more from Envato Market’s best selling stationary and design templates. Professional brand materials will help your business stand out. Grab one that’s the best fit for your flourishing small business.