In Footsteps No 8, we looked at some ideas for producing illustrations which could be used as posters. Here is a simple idea for producing lettering for posters or banners. These are outlines of lettering guides. They will give a neat and uniform result which can be easily achieved by anyone with a little practice. They will usually be much better and easier to read than letters drawn free-hand. The letter guides include ways of drawing numbers. They may also give ideas for other symbols which you may use in your community.
Before use, it would be helpful to photocopy the letter guides (or copy them using the method in Issue No 8) so that you do not need to break up your copy of Footsteps. Each guide should then be glued down on a sheet of thin card (waxed card is ideal). Use a sharp knife to cut around the outlines. If available, sheets of firm plastic would give an even more permanent guide. Experiment to find the right material.
It would be helpful to draw in faint lines across the poster to show where you want to place the letters. Use these lines as markers when placing the letter guides. Draw the outline of the letters required with pencil or charcoal. You can then fill in the outlines and round off the corners using a more permanent marker - coloured pens, ink or paint.
If even larger letters are required, simply measure all the sides of the letter guide and multiply the measurements by 2 or 3.
When dotted lines are shown, it means that the letter guide has to be moved to a second position in order to complete the letter.
You will get a better result if you use the same distance in between each letter. Try this out. As a rough guide, the width of one of the vertical strokes in the letter guide would probably give good results. However, when the letter L is followed by T,V or Y you will need to reduce the spacing to avoid an ugly gap in the word.
Try and use the same distance in between each word - the width of the letter A would probably be about right.
The information is adapted with kind permission of BASICS - produced by Rural Communications, Somerset.