Customizing Type: Creating Wordmarks That Work
1h 31mIntermediate2025-03-21
Authors
Aaron Draplin
Designer of products, logos, and identity campaigns
Skillshare
Course details
Join design icon Aaron Draplin as he shares tried and true techniques for customizing type—an essential skill for graphic designers of all levels. Follow along as Aaron digs for antique typographic references and then creates several type treatments of his own to design merchandise for Portland, his beloved hometown. He teaches you to avoid default typeface settings and to take ownership of your design by managing the forms, in-between spaces, and relationships of the letters you're working with. Once you master customizing type, you'll have a powerful skill in your design toolkit for every branding, logo, and visual styling project that comes your way.
Skills covered
Logo DesignTypographyIllustrationIllustratorMotion Graphics and VFXGraphic DesignAdobeAnimation and IllustrationOne-Off
Concepts
0. Introduction
- 01 - Type techniques for awesome wordmarks
- 02 - Prowling for references in the real world
1. Customizing Strategies
- 03 - Kerning and tracking
- 04 - Playing with shapes
- 05 - Chopping and extending letterforms, part 1
- 06 - Chopping and extending letterforms, part 2
2. Sketching Type by Hand
- 07 - Custom type sketching
- 08 - Digitizing sketches, part 1
- 09 - Digitizing sketches, part 2
- 10 - Preparing for print
3. Bonus Lessons - Texture and Script
- 11 - Adding texture to type
- 12 - Rebuilding found script
Conclusion
- 13 - Next steps