A Designer's Reflections: A Skillbox Media Perspective

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How often do you reflect on your past experiences and review your previous work? I admit, I don't do this very often. However, when I come across my old texts, I can't resist analyzing them.

My journey in lettering began with simple experiments aimed at satisfying my own interests and the interests of friends. One of my first projects was a spring slogan. If I took on this work now, it would look completely different, but then I did the best I could :) There is no need to talk about what exactly is wrong with the letters - there is just a desire to do everything in a new way.

After I started drawing for myself and my friends, sharing my work on various social media, and I started getting requests for lettering. This happened almost ten years ago, and chalk was particularly popular back then. Looking back, I realize that this experience was excellent training for me and helped me significantly improve my skills. Of course, there were some mistakes and shortcomings in this process, but chalk is truly a wonderful material. If something goes wrong, just erase and draw again!

With each new work I published, I received more and more collaboration offers, and they became more and more serious. For example, I was commissioned to create lettering for the cover of an entertainment project called "Saturday Rambler." However, I had some questions about the width of the letters, their cuts, and other details... ?

The children's dance festival "Svetlana" currently gives the impression of excessive disorganization and disorder. In the choreography, more attention should have been paid to the structure and rhythmic sound.

The book "Scientific Fun" became for me both a source of suffering and a significant achievement: it was thanks to it that other publishers began to contact me - first it was "MYTH", and then and Popcorn Books, along with "Lines."

I created overly realistic and detailed images of letters. Although lettering is essentially letter illustrations, since I've reached a professional level, I've stopped allowing myself and my students to do anything like that. If the letters looked more abstract, but it was still possible to recognize various chemical elements, it would look much more impressive and fascinating.

Another book cover that worries me is "The Great Creative Challenge".

All the characters are hand-made, and the background is formed from available materials, which is clearly noticeable: you can clearly see what tool was used to make the lettering, and the letters look unfinished.

At the moment, this lettering looks insufficiently finished and unprocessed. However, at that time, the art director was quite satisfied with the result.

I always thought that creating lettering in the Soviet spirit comes to me with ease and naturalness. However, when I look at works of the past, I notice that in the word "cork" (probka) the thick stroke in the letter "P" stands out, which looks like a ligature, and in the phrase "December of gifts" the letter "e" is almost italic compared to the other letters in the first word.

In the lettering project called "Vysotsky," which I completed for Yandex in 2018, some imperfections in the uniformity of the line thickness are noticeable.

In "The Nature of Things" there are also many layers and nuances. However, in this case, it can be explained by the naturalness of the topic raised :)

Every year I create postcards, and in one of last year's works I definitely should have increased the contrast in the letter P.

Read also:

A feeling of empathy, introspection, and the joy of fonts.

A post about professional activities in 2022.

I've made the most annoying mistakes on postcards—misspelled words in English and Italian. I'm completely unfamiliar with Italian, so it's understandable. But with English... It's a real shame when it's not just an e-card, but a printed one, and in good quality! 🙂 The text and design were reviewed by several people, and no one noticed this typo.

Regularly evaluate your actions from different perspectives. Sometimes it turns out to be impossible to correct the mistakes made!

It is necessary to regularly check and analyze your work. It's also effective to work in stages, taking breaks and returning to what you've completed after a day or two. This will allow you to spot mistakes and shortcomings that you might have missed earlier.

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Also read:

• Nine Key Typography Trends for 2024.
• 25 Fresh Fonts That Support the Cyrillic Alphabet.
• Where to Find the Perfect New Year's Gift: 15 Wonderful Russian Stamps.

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