The days are getting shorter 🍂so let’s brighten them up with some fall flourishing! While we’ll use these tips for fall themes, these are lifelong methods you can repurpose for any future lettering, too!

Even if you’re brand new to flourishing, these tips will elevate your lettering, no matter your skill level. We’ll go through each, step-by-step, and talk about *why* they work so well (not just how to make them!). Composition is key, even if we’re only working with one word – so we’ll also go over a checklist to guarantee yours is strong every time!

Let’s take the word ‘harvest’. Lettering following the basics might look like this with a standard lettering grid (meaning there’s no extreme contrast in proportions):

Let’s add a little contrast now in proportions and add a little bounce to it, too:

Now we’ve got some personality! Do you see how it feels balanced? Nothing is dipping so far up or down that it’s distracting and taking away from reading the word as a whole. Meaning I don’t immediately look at the ‘rv’ or any other combo before reading ‘harvest’ first. This is your sign that the foundation of your composition is in a good place.

✨ Make sure you’re seeing and reading your full word vs. an individual letter relationship before moving onto flourishing.

Quick tip for Bounce Lettering
​Always add bounce to letters that end in a downstroke, *not* upstroke for the most natural flow. This allows you to create the bounce in the transition from the end of the downstroke into the next letter. (fun fact: I actually coined the term bounce lettering! 🤓)

Here’s what I mean by downstroke (the last stroke you make to complete the letter is in a downward motion):

Now it’s time to flourish! The most important tip here is consistency. Consistency….everywhere.

Make your curl style consistent:

Match how you end your strokes (called terminals):

Keep the style/shape/weight of your loops consistent:

Line weight consistency:

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👉 Whatever you choose to do here needs to be consistent throughout all of your flourishing.

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This will take some practice, so don’t get discouraged when you first start recognizing this. This is what significantly sets pros apart from beginners. It’ll take intentional practice, but you’ll begin building muscle memory and it’ll start happening naturally the more you do it/are aware of it!

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Here’s what I decided to do with harvest:

And here’s the breakdown of my decisions:

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​Your Checklist
​The composition = all parts combined:
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✅ line weight
✅ amount of bounce
✅ curl style
✅ flourish quantity
✅ flourish style
✅ placement of flourishes, etc.
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​When these are consistent, it will always be strong and balanced for the viewer.

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Do you see how this version is weaker?

It may have been hard to tell *why* before, but now you know. Even if some parts are strong (bounce, contrast in proportions) it can still fall apart visually (flourishing). It’s ALL because of inconsistencies.

Tighten those up and your artwork will always look more elevated + pro.

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Let’s do one more ✨

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This time, let’s use two fall words: pumpkin spice. Here’s what your basic lettering would look like:

If you’re not comfortable with bounce lettering yet, you don’t need to add it every time before flourishing! Here’s an example of *slightly* altering basic lettering and combining it with flourishing:

This is all monoweight, too, so using a pressure sensitive brush/stylus is also optional!

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Here’s the consistency breakdown:

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If you’d like more tips like this along with brushes, templates and cheatsheets to guide you through creating your own styles, you can find them here.

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Happy Tuesday! 🍂

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