Keep Cool But Care

As I mentioned in my September 2020 Update, I have been working on a lettering project which has stalled because one of the things I want to accomplish with it is to do a version in Adobe Illustrator. My Illustrator skills are pretty basic so I need to work toward being able to move my lettering project there.

Instead of waiting for that to get done, I thought I would post about what I have done so far.

Since I’m in the midst of a Thomas Pynchon re-read, I opted to go with a pithy quote from V.: “Keep Cool But Care”.

This is uttered by a minor character, the jazz saxophonist McClintic Sphere. His full quote is:

Love with your mouth shut, help without breaking your ass or publicizing it: keep cool, but care.

I began with a very rough sketch of what I was thinking of. For the fonts, I looked through my copy of The Calligrapher’s Bible, and decided on Routunda for the “Keep Cool” part and Pen Script, bold minuscule for the “But Care” part.

Based on that, I got a better idea of the spacing and then did a more serious draft. I wasn’t too worried about getting the spacing exact because I knew what I wanted to do with one of the following steps.

I then went over it to darken the lines.

One of the big takeaways for me from Martina Flor’s Lettering Seminar (which I’m still not quite done. See above re: stuck on Illustrator) is the concept of using tracing paper to continue drafting versions of a lettering project. Of course, that depends on what the finished product is meant to be. I knew I eventually wanted to scan my project to finish it digitally so doing an iteration with tracing paper helped me further refine details and spacing.

As I worked on those details, I also began filling in my letters.

At that point, I felt ready to scan it.

The final step, as of now, was to import it into Procreate, trace it, and add colors and a background. I went with a cool blue for the “Keep Cool” part and a warm orange for the “But Care” part. I thought it would stand out nicely with a black background.

It’s far from perfect, but it was the first time I seriously tried a project like this. I really enjoyed the process and will soon–I hope–be able to do another version in Illustrator.