August 8, 2018

Open Studio – July 2018

According to the our new tradition, on Sunday July 8th, I opened the doors of my studio for the second time. At the main room, old and new artwork were exhibited, including personal projects, commercial work, my book, products, and some sneak peaks of projects that are to come. In the seminar room, we exhibited the work of the 10 international attendees of this year's summer lettering seminar.

Once again, it was a pleasure to welcome designers and letter aficionados and share with them a part of the bulk of work I've done throughout these years. 

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June 28, 2017

Book presentation and workshop at TDC, New York!

As I started as a lettering artist I always pictured myself traveling and teaching here and there. I started my workshops in lettering design in Berlin with the vision of making them internationally, to be able to reach as many different audiences as I could. I traveled with my workshops to a lot of places: Switzerland, Spain, U.K., Argentina, Arab Emirates, Peru, Turkey and more. These workshops grew and they turned into a book.

This June I had the pleasure to travel to New York to present the book at The Type Directors Club and teach a workshop there. I couldn't imagine a better place to do that! One more proof that the bigger your dreams, the greater the accomplishments.

Thanks to everyone who came to my presentation and book signing, and to those that signed up for my workshop and did great work.

Workshop_NY_

July 2, 2016

The Book

THE FIRST STEPS

After holding talks about my teaching methodology at TypeCon 2014 and AtypI 2014, defining the structure of my book turned out pretty easy. I remember coming back from the AtypI Barcelona Conference, driving directly from the airport to the studio, sitting at my desk and putting down on an A3 paper all the ideas that I had in my head. This was the plan de route for the book. planderoute

Left: first mind map of the content of my book in November 2014. Right: First pages plan of the book before finding a publisher.

I wanted to make a book that would speak to a broad readership under my personal belief that everyone can learn to draw letters. I also wanted it to feel as if the reader was at one of my workshops, with clear visual explanations. As a result, the book is 50% handmade, including sketches done by me, handwritten notes and schematic illustrations that explain in a didactic way how to draw letter shapes.

Since I defined the first structure for the content, I worked on it on and off aside my studio work. The growing amount of commercial work I was doing didn’t allow me to work on it on a daily basis and it wasn't until TYPO Berlin 2015 that I set a deadline for it.

SIGNING WITH A PUBLISHER

I met Bertram Schmidt-Friedrichs, the head editor from Verlag Hermann Schmidt, at Typo Berlin 2015. We were spontaneously introduced to each other by book designer Tomas Marauzkas. In a 5 minutes conversation I pitched the book I was working on and I believe that I spoke about it with such an enthusiasm and conviction that, some days after, Bertram invited me to Mainz to speak about the project.

Since they have a wide expertise on typography and design books, Verlag Hermann Schmidt seemed the right match for what I had in hands. I was after a publisher that would understand the sort of project I was after.

It took us a two hour meeting to realise that we were on the same page with the direction of the book. One month later we were signing the contract that 9 months after will bring to life this book.

DOING THE BOOK

My son was born a month after signing that contract with Verlag Hermann Schmidt. As every first-time mom, I had no idea of what it means to welcome a baby in your life nor how that influences your daily routine, your family and your work. The first months my son was there where truly challenging, enjoyable and confusing. I didn’t really know how I could ever go from that position to back to work again. However, I was sure of one thing: I wanted to make this book happen.

Funnily, the conditions turned out to be relatively positive to work on it. Since during those months I was taking in very few commercial commissions from clients, I could concentrate almost exclusively on this project. mewithbaby

Me working at my home office with baby

I was creating the content, the illustrations as well as taking care of the layout for most of the time and, therefore, the making of process turned out to be really toilsome. Having an engaged, open minded and straight forward editor coordinating the steps as well as giving me valuable feedback was essential to finalise the book.

The book was written in english and translated to german. Since a big part of it is composed by handmade sketches and handwritten notes, the process was time consuming as well as implementing the corrections.

martinaflorshand

Physical proof of designers hard work

THE RESULT

The book is much more than I initially imagined, and it was shaped through an exciting creative process with my editor as a partner. It concentrates on the process of drawing letter shapes by hand, i.e., the art of hand lettering. However, the goal is not to make imperfect, quirky, handmade-looking type, but rather to create well-shaped, polished, exquisite digital lettering.

To that end, I show the basics of letter design as well as essential tips to master different lettering styles.photo01


I will guide you through the process of creating a lettering project, from start to finish, from analog to digital. Beginning your design by hand, you will learn about sketching methods and techniques to improve your drawings. photo02

Once you have finished sketching, you will jump into the digital environment and draw your letter shapes in vectors. You will finalize your piece by coloring it and adding texture. photo03
Last but not least, I will share some insights about the commercial work of hand lettering. I will describe the most common kinds of commissions and give advice on how to reach out for clients and how to showcase your work.photo04

Before you run to your favorite book store to get your copy, you should know that this book shows just one way of doing things: mine. It is informed by my personal experience of working in the commercial world, by all the teachers and colleagues I learned from, and by my involvement in teaching at universities and private workshops.

My aim with it is to share all I have learned through trial and error. Rather than showing pretty alphabets that you can copy and color, this book will provide you with concepts, tools, and techniques that will guide you in your own path to hand lettering. Be ready to learn about them and make them your own. After reading this book, you will see letters in a totally new way.

LustaufLettering-Martinaflor-order

You can order it online here or find it at your favourite book store.

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Join thousands of readers in this community and upgrade your lettering skills! If you're as excited as I am, send this link to a friend, so they can subscribe too. 

June 15, 2016

Celebrating my book release

GoldenSecretsofLettering-germannew

After intense years of work, I have published my first book on Letter Design called Lust auf Lettering published by Verlag Hermann Schmidt. The book will be released in English under its original name The Golden Secrets of Lettering in April 2017 by Princeton Architectural Press in the U.S. and Thames & Hudson in the U. K. The Spanish version will be published toward August 2017 by GG. Other languages will follow.

The book is the result of five years of teaching letter design as well as running a studio in custom typography and lettering. On account to all the effort, heart and brain that I put in this project I dare to say that this is a milestone in my work. As such, it sort of pushes me to look back in retrospective and try to join the dots that lead to this point of my career.

Within the upcoming week, I'll post a series of texts in this blog. They will cover my experience at giving workshops in letter design, my commercial work, my talks at conferences and, of course, the content of the book. Join me in this online celebration!

Sign up to my newsletter to receive them in your mailbox as soon as I publish them.

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Find Lust auf Lettering in bookstores in all german speaking countries. You can order it online here. 
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Join thousands of readers in this community and upgrade your lettering skills! If you're as excited as I am, send this link to a friend, so they can subscribe too. 

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May 11, 2016

My book – Lust auf Lettering

lustauflettering-thebook

I'm thrilled to announce that my book is out in german language and you can pre-order it here. English and Spanish language publications will follow. Cheers to that!

January 22, 2014

Featured in Typography Issue 4

My work was featured in the Japanese Book Typography 4 next to the great work of many colleagues of mine.

November 13, 2012

Showcase in ‘Hand to type’

This is a very nice book about Scripts, Hand-Lettering and Calligraphy, edited by Jan Middendorp and published by Die Gestalten Verlag.

November 2, 2011

Showcase in Gestalten


My work is included in Latino Gráfico, a book about Visual Culture in Latin America
Edited by TwoPoints and published by Die Gestalten

December 2, 2007

El círculo de la suerte

Here's Andreas Ferrari's new book. We worked together to define the scenes to illustrate and the personality of each character. Published by Ed. Alfaguara in Latin America.

Sparrstraße 20,
13353 Berlin, Germany (by appointment only)
+49 (0) 30 33877574 

Sparrstraße 20,
13353 Berlin, Germany (by appointment only)
+49 (0) 30 33877574 

Sparrstraße 20,
13353 Berlin, Germany (by appointment only)
+49 (0) 30 33877574 

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©2019 Studio Martina Flor. All rights reserved.

 

 ©2019 Studio Martina Flor. All rights reserved.