Drawing an alphabet – L

Initial idea: elaboration

If you’ve been going through the letters have done so far (as if) you might have thought I was avoiding anything that involved too much hard work.¹ Fair enough.

This started with an ink doodle where the L shape was suggested by a grid of squiggles. This didn’t work digitally but I decided to make the ‘L’ out of a pile of bits rather than draw an outline.

This is where this probably comes from.²

I made this slight easier for myself by keeping the lines the same thickness. I also used a grid to align most of it (some of the points needed nudging from the grid to make it look better).

This sort of thing has been quite trendy recently. It’s a mashup between Victorian style decoration and modern digital sensibilities.

The vertical bit was easy. It’s just a stack of shapes. Breaking out of this and into the horizontal part was difficult.

This could be better. It could also take a very long time to make it better.

You know the rules

For this to work as a unified piece it has to be built using consistent rules. I had no idea what most of those rules were when I started and had to discover (make them up) them as I went along. This occurred in several of the letters and it’s not always possible to say what those rules are. Perhaps I’m just talking about aesthetic judgement.

This is part of a project to draw the letters of the alphabet in different styles.

Bonus feature

Letters into logos

It wasn’t the original intent but the potential was obviously there – I’ve turned some of the letters into logos and branding. I’ve had to invent companies to match the logos, which is not the usual order of things.

1. Yes, that ‘J’…
2. I didn’t reference it but I had seen it before and work that (probably) has been influenced by it.