A Hand Lettered Alphabet GIF

I drew one letter every day for 26 days last December. The alphabet. Alpha through Zed. The ABCs. I completed the hand-lettered alphabet project just for me. I made a gif of it just for you.

Some letters took a few tries before I came to something I liked. “F” was a fantastic failure if I remember correctly. “X” is all over the place.

None of them would function well in a font. Still, every time I put pen, pencil, or marker to paper, I faced decisions about line, movement, dominance, value, and balance. These design element decisions are important to practice. Letter forms are the perfect tool for rapid iteration, once you get to know them.

Characters are purely symbolic. They have no meaning until people come along and give them something. Still, anyone using the Latin alphabet recognizes that an A is an A; it has a sound, a name, and looks like an angle with a crossbar.

Because an “A” already has a form structure, I have the freedom to add flourish and dimension. “B” forms of the world add curved elements to the challenge. “C”s abandon straight lines altogether. Their personalities are curious and demand attention. When I do it again, they will be different, but never perfect.