How I channeled my “inner zombie” to letter for a commission.
It was something I never imagined I would say or do. Who knew that we have an inner zombie?
When my friend, colleague, and facilitation mentor Brian Tarallo reached out to me for support of his new book, Surviving the Horror of Online Meetings I was thrilled and frightened simultaneously. I knew I would have to venture into a world unfamiliar to me full of monsters, mummies, scary creatures and zombies.
At the time, I didn’t know I had it in me so I looked to what I did know. And the source of inspiration—Brian’s creative direction:
Think “Plants vs. Zombies”
We used to play this game when I lived in DC.
What if the Scary lettering style I came up with for Halloween met the fun-loving hand of Twinkle?
Both designed with the Neuland FineOne Art (brush nib marker). It’s a fan favorite for illustrators but has been a bane for some lettering artists. I love the challenge of designing lettering styles with it.
When designing a lettering style, I use the advice I got from Dana Wright when we were in a mastermind together while working on our books: “Write, THEN edit.” It worked for my book, Lettering Journey. It’s a technique I use for my morning pages. And it’s something I have practiced to find my—and help others find their—signature style in my premier Level Up Your Lettering workshops. So I applied “Write THEN edit” to what I now call Zombie Hand.
First I reviewed my notes for both lettering styles and took special note of the attributes.
Pictured above: Exemplars from Scary Letters and Twinkle. You can watch the Scary video from 2017 here. And you can find the Twinkle video with Sandra Dirks here. Both are free and come with PDF downloads.
Pictured below: Taking my favorite bits of each style to create new attributes for Zombie Hand.
Then I took inspiration from these creepy hands illustrated by Mark Monlux:
Then I closed my eyes, went deep inside to channel my inner zombie. I imagined myself as...
A floppy-headed zombie with a crooked smile and a twitch in my writing arm. Where I lacked the appetite for brains, I made up for it in my hunger for letters.
With the marker in my hand, I begin to write out the chapter titles for the book. My body moved and twitched the entire time. I liken the experience to lucid drawing only with a frightening twist.
The letters came out wonky: different sizes, widths and rotated. But somehow awkwardly yet successfully in relationship with one another.
I scanned and vectorized them before placing them on the pages that I laid out, inspired by Brian’s expansive knowledge of facilitating online meetings and Mark Monlux’s impeccable representation of monsters.
The book is a thrill to read and a must have for anyone meeting online. Which is just about everyone...who isn’t a swamp monster.
To learn more and order several copies of this must-have book, visit: https://www.survivingthehorrorbook.com/
