New Work: Handlettering for Self Magazine

sketch-01
sketch-01
sketch-03
sketch-03
sketch-03b
sketch-03b
sketch-04
sketch-04
sketch-05
sketch-05
sketch-06
sketch-06
sketch-06b
sketch-06b

A few weeks ago, Self Magazine approached me to make a hand lettering with the words: "You're brilliant, amazing, gorgeous, hilarious,...". I was so thrilled they contacted me so I said YES! This was my first hand lettering paid job, so I was pretty nervous about the result! Here are a few of the proposals I made and the final artwork. In the end, we picked one of the first sketches I made.

sketch-02
sketch-02

And this is the final art:

What do you think? I think I had a preference for number 2 or 3...

Flowers everywhere

Today, I would like to share a bit more than just the final piece. I am going to share the steps i used to arrive to the final lettering, in terms of composition and colors. That way, you can learn more about my work & thought process.  

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step1
step1

Step 1:

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step2
step2

Step 2: I tried a white ink on black paper to see what it looked like, but i came back to the watercolors because I didn't think it fitted the quote. I wanted something light. 

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Step 3: I took the same quote, but put it in french, just because normally I only do English, so for a change! I tried some different combinations of watercolors and really liked what happened in the words "les voir", so i kept these colors as reference.

step4
step4

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step3
step3

Step 4:  Another tryout similar to step 3.

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Step 5:

I quite like the floating composition of this one, but there are still things that don't look nice. The words "les voir" is too much on the left and leaves a big white space under "veut bien". Let's try to improve that. Of course i could move the words in Photoshop, and i usually do some Photoshop to makes things look more harmonious, but this time, i am going to play the game fully :)

step5
step5

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lettering-fleurs
lettering-fleurs
lettering-fleurs-square closeup
lettering-fleurs-square closeup

Final piece: I am quite happy with this final composition and colors, so I stopped there. Of course, you can always make everything better and perfection it, but it is also nice to be able to stop at some point.