What if reading books became your entire personality?
Inspired by my love of reading, this series is filled with lettering bookish quotes for book lovers. Being an avid reader myself, I wanted to create a project that could speak to other book nerds like me.
How it all started
I started this project kind of accidentally. When I first got my iPad Pro, I needed a quote so I could create my first artwork in Procreate, a drawing app on the iPad. At the time, I was reading “The Midnight Library” and one quote in the book got my attention: “Between life and death there is a library”. I really loved and related to this phrase, so I wanted to create something with it!
It wasn’t until a few months later that I was going through my work and stumbled upon the artwork that I had made. So I thought to myself: what if this became a series about books? So, because of this quote, my Bookaholic Lettering Series began.
Brainstorming
Once I decided to start this new lettering project, it was time to brainstorm some ideas of quotes I could use. At first, I began looking for known bookish quotes and phrases by famous people. But the more I researched, the more I thought about my own voice. I wanted to design quotes that resonated with me and that I came up with, not just use other’s people words.
While I did use a “The Midnight Library” quote and a Jane Austen one from “Pride and Prejudice” (which by the way is a book that I absolutely adore), I came up with a few quotes of my own. Some of them are a play on a few famous phrases such as:
- It was love at first chapter (a play on “It was love at first sight”)
- Girls just wanna read books (a play on “Girls just wanna have fun”)
- The books are calling and I must read (a play on “The mountains are calling and I must go”)
- All you need is books (a play on “All you need is love”)
- Home is where the books are (a play on “Home is where the heart is”)
These are just a few examples of how I took some phrases and made them my own, which in this case means it’s all about books!
Design Process
Thumbnail
I always begin my design process by doing some thumbnail sketches. This is where I’ll explore any ideas that come to mind. This is not the time for perfection, it’s time for exploration. I write down the quote that I’ll be designing and then I begin sketching some layout ideas.
Sketching
After doing some layout exploration with thumbnails, I’ll choose one that works better in the context of the quote. This is where I’ll start sketching in a larger format. It’s also when I decide which style of lettering to use. The sketching phase can have many iterations.
I usually start by lightly sketching the letters by doing what we as lettering artists refer to as letter skeletons, which is drawing the outlines of each letter. At this point, I’m not thinking about the style yet. This is just so I can see how the words and letters fit within the composition. After that, I’ll decide which styles I want to draw for each word.
For the sketching process, I work in layers. I draw the first layer, then I keep drawing on top of the previous layer until I’m satisfied with it. Depending on the piece, this can involve multiple layers of sketching. I like to have a solid sketch before I start the inking process, so I don’t have to think about fixing much once I get to it.
Inking
After I’m happy with my sketch, I begin the inking process. I like to fill in my pieces in black or grayscale first because at this point I’m not thinking about the colors yet. I want to make sure my lettering and illustration are perfected before I start the coloring process.
Color Palette
I didn’t have a set process for the color palette in each piece of this project. Sometimes I would think of a mood for a piece, such as a cozy fall vibe or I would get inspired by 80s’ colors. When a photo inspired me, I would create a color palette based on that. Other times I would just begin with a color in mind and build from there. I wanted to have a variety of color palettes and each one was created specifically with the piece in mind.
As soon as I’m happy with the colors I chose, I do a quick color blocking just to see how everything will look together in the final artwork. I then keep it aside so I can reference it when I’m filling in the entire piece.
Notebook Covers
I thought it would be fun to apply these lettering pieces to a product. I considered doing these as book covers since this project is all about books, but I had an idea that these would look cool as notebook covers. So I turned them into a reading journal collection! Take a look at all the covers below.
Sketch vs. Final Artwork
Process Videos
I recorded process videos from all of the artworks in this Bookaholic Lettering Series. I wanted to showcase a little bit of the behind the scenes of how I design and draw each one of these pieces. You can take a peek at my process below or watch the playlist on Youtube!
