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Lettering sample using Ames Lettering Guide

Conventions

Lettering — Preview all these first

  • Reference Drafting notes.
  • Instructions with the Ames Lettering Guide, instructions (here fom Olson Mfg.)
  • Old School Lettering 101, Part 04 [making guide lines]: Ames Lettering Guide (You Tube)
  • How to write like and architect. Doug Patt. [Here, the lettering is too 'animated'. But the video is good in the way it shows the use of the Ames guide while writing.]
  • How to letter with lead. Doug Patt. [Still too animated..and too much 'personality'. Aim for extreme legibility. But good to show pencil angle, line weight.]
  • Lettering (in Flash), Architectural Drafting Fundamentals, Instructor: JoBeth Halpin, Triton College
  • Excerpts from Sutherland, Martha. Lettering for Architects and Designers. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 2nd ed., 1989

Practice 'capital' lettering (using alphabet and numbers)

Write three paragraphs. This may be a quote, cited.

Use lined paper, freehand (guidelines, ruled lines only an option).

Use every other line for lettering.

Hand in.

Equipment

  • Leads: 4H for guidelines and construction lines, 2H (or less) for lettering.Or what works for you.
  • Ames Lettering Guide
  • Mechanical pencils or 'clutches' (for lead)
  • Use 11" by 17" white copyier paper available in the Architecture Printing room just opposite room 202.

Assignment

Construct guide lines:

  • Use blank paper, 11" by 17" white.
  • Use the Ames Lettering Guide for light, horizontal 'guidelines' constructed using a sharpened, hard (if possible 4H) pencil lead.
  • Read instructions, above, first.
  • Based on what you will be writing on the sheet (see below), carefully lay out your page/guidelines to compose your page graphically.
  • On the circular ('disk'), rotating part of the Ames Lettering Guide, the numbers, which range from 2 to 10 (on the English--non-metric--scale) denote the height of letters in 1/32th of an inch.
  • Have '6' line up with the vertical mark (below, indicated as the letter 'T') at the bottom of the guide to produce guide lines of 6/32" (or 3/16") for lettering.
  • Use the two-thirds ratio column of holes. These lines will be used as guides for only writing capital letters, so do not construct the 'extra' line using the hole in between the two holes bridged by the elliptical line ")", which would only be included as a guideline for 'lower case' lettering.
  • Scribe light, sharp lines only locating them where your lettering will be.

Practice 'capital' lettering (uppercase, block, majuscule):

  • Review all reading above first.
  • For all vertial lines in letters use the Ames Lettering Guide and/or a straight edge (triangle, T-square) using a medium (2H, if possible) pencil lead.
  • Make other strokes (horizontal, circular, etc.) freehand, either horizontal or at a slight angle (up to the right )on the 'crossbars'.

Write a few paragraphs (or use a quote, cited) and . . .

Practice numbers (alone) and dimensions (feet, inches, fractions of an inch)