You might have seen some gorgeous typefaces on books, movie posters, or websites and wondered how to achieve them. If you’re looking for a new art style to try, then look no further than hand lettering.

It’s a great way to strengthen your abilities, but you should avoid a few mistakes if you want to perfect your craft. Here are some common hand-lettering mistakes and how to correct them.

Make Sure To Thicken the Correct Section of the Letter

No matter which technique you use, you’ll want to make sure that you thicken the downstroke and not the horizontal or upstroke. Avoiding this mistake will help your letters stand out.

Don’t thicken random parts of your letters because if you aren’t consistent with the thickening, your letters will look odd. Identifying the best part of the letter to thicken can be a difficult task, but the more you practice, the easier it gets.

Don’t Overextend the Thick Part of the Letter

When it comes to hand lettering, you don’t want to thicken too much. Your letters will look sloppy if you do so, which is why you want to make sure that you thicken your letters just the right amount.

You can avoid this problem by halting the thickness where you change the direction of your pen stroke. You need to be extra careful with this technique when you’re using fine point chalk markers.

Take Your Pen off the Paper

It’s easy to get carried away with sticking your pen to the page, but it can lead to messy calligraphy if you aren’t careful. When you learn cursive, the teacher tells you not to take your pen off the paper, but this isn’t the case with hand lettering.

If you want to improve your hand-lettering ability, take your pen off the page every one to two letters so that your style doesn’t look rigid. The goal is to make it appear as if your pen never left the paper, but sometimes, a break in your strokes will help your letters appear to have stronger connections.

Overall, hand lettering is a delicate art that requires precision. Now that you know a few of the most common hand-lettering mistakes and how to correct them, your hand-lettering skills will improve in no time.