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CHAPTER SEVEN 
 

Types, Lettering and Layout 
Ayorinde S. Oluyemi, Chibuzor Asogwa,  

& Chidiebere Onwuekwe 
 

Introduction 
ettering entails the art of constructing letters of the 
alphabet as well as numbers for certain uses. 
Although today, the narrative has changed with the 

advancement of technology. Letters are deployed to 
communicate to specific audiences. The use of lettering 
dated back almost two thousand (2000) years ago and may 
have been derived from the Babylonians, Egyptians, 
Romans, and Greeks.  Historically, the art of lettering 
started in ancient Egypt. This Egyptian form of writing is 
called hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphics is a pictorial form of 
writing. Also, Babylon has its form of ancient writing 
called cuneiform. Until the year 1450, all letters were 
handwritten, it was a German called Johannes Gutenberg 
who invented the printing machine and this made room 
for different typefaces of lettering in use today. The two 
factors that control lettering are; legibility and structural 
shape.  

Lettering offers immense satisfaction, but it is a 
subtle activity that needs time and patience. Lettering 
helps to convey meaning as regards skills and originality. A 
letter is a symbol that represents a sound as pronounced in 
speech. It is one of the units of the alphabet. The method 

L 



Types, Lettering and Layout 

86 
 

adopted in writing this alphabetic symbol is called the art 
of lettering.  

Typefaces can be regarded as the physical features 
of a letter. There are several categories of typefaces, but 
we are going to limit ourselves to the foundational types; 
as follows;  
 
Romans (Serif): In Roman lettering, there is no 
uniformity in their thickness. They have what are called 
thick and thin features. They also have ornamental 
projections known as serifs at the top and bottom of each 
letter. Thus it is called the roman style of lettering 
example; 
 

A, B, C    A, B, C    A, B,C 
 

 
 
Block Types (San serif): These types of strokes are 
uniform because they are without ornamental projections, 
they are referred to as san serif examples.   
 

  A,B,C    A,B,C      A,B,C 
 

 

Times 
New Roman 

Bookman 
Old Style 

Bodoni 
Black 

Antonio Futura Sans Swiss 



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Italics: These are letters that tilt towards the right 
direction. They are generally believed to be less formal and 
usually create variety and emphasis in writing, examples 
are as follows: 
 

 A,B,C      A,B,C      A,B,C 
 

 
Scripts or Cursiva 
This can be likened to an imitation of hand-written letters. 
It is full of decoration and takes a lot of time to write. It is 
usually employed as the first letter of a word, for example; 

a,b,c      a,b,c     , ,

 
 
 
Gothic: Before the invention of the printing machine, 
books were written by hand. The art of using a free hand 
to write beautifully with the aid of a pen is called 
calligraphy. It is also called script writing and cursive 
writing.  
 

Antonio Futura Sans Swiss 

Edwardian 
Script 

Alison Cinderela 



Types, Lettering and Layout 

88 
 

Old English 

Despite the advancement we are witnessing in 
printing technology, the art of calligraphy is still visible in 
greetings care designs, certificates, invitation cards etc. pen 
and ink are the chief materials needed for calligraphy. 
There are readymade pens with different nibs made 
purposely for calligraphy. However, if these readymade 
calligraphic pens are not available quill feather sticks can 
be carved to a desirable shape as alternatives.  

A,B,C     
 
 

We should note that capital letters are referred to as 
uppercase while small letters are called lowercase.   
 
Legibility factor in Types 

Legibility is otherwise known as readability. The 
primary purpose of a typeface is to transfer information. 
To attain this goal, it must be legible, i.e. the recipients of 
the information should be able to decode it with as little 
effort as possible and reassess the symbols to objects and 
process what they represent. This is generally agreed upon, 
but it is more difficult to agree upon how legibility can be 
assessed and even measured (Wendt, 1994). Readability 
talks about the speed and ease of understanding and 
comprehending the text (Mills & Weldon, 1987; Woods, 
Davis, & Scharff, 2005) 
 



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Lettering Construction 
In lettering construction, horizontal and vertical lines 

are used as guides expect for letters M and W, three 
horizontal boxes by five vertical boxes should be applied 
to attain regular squared boxes known as a grid. These 
boxes should be measured and their measurement can be 
1cm by 1cm or any other dimension. Letter I requires one 
horizontal box by five vertical boxes. Capital letters which 
are also known as upper cases can be categorized into 
three forms in lettering construction. They are;  

- Triangular form: This has A V W 

- Circular form: This has O C D  

- Rectangular form: This has M N H E and I.  
Spacing is important in lettering construction because it 
distinguishes words and sentences and makes the 
expressions readable. Small letters which are also known 
as lowercase are not of the same height as the capital 
letters. The height difference is due to the upper and lower 
projections that the lowercase letters possess. These 
projections are also called descenders and ascenders.  

   

 
To construct small letters, three horizontal boxes by 

three vertical boxes are suitable for letters without 
projections. The letters are; a o e u c v x s, for the letters 



Types, Lettering and Layout 

90 
 

with ascenders and descenders, three horizontal boxes by 
seven vertical boxes will be suitable.  
 
Materials Required for Lettering  

• A good ruler  

• A soft pencil of HB or B grade 

• A soft pencil eraser  

• A good pair of mathematical compasses  

• Paper or board on which to write, ink paint etc.  
 
Parts of Typefaces 

• Capital letters are referred to as upper case for example 
“A”  

• Small letters are referred to as lower case for example 
“a”  

• In lower case letters the upper stroke as the letter ‘d’ is 
called ascender.  

• The downward stroke as in the letter ‘p’ of the 
lowercase is called the descender while the round part is 
called the body.  

• The short cross line at the end of the main stroke of 
certain styles of typefaces is called the serif.  

• The top of the A is called the Apex.  

• The slanted lettering is referred to as italic.  

• The inside curve of the c is referred to as the counter. 
 



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Letter Spacing: Spaces between letters, or types of 
characters are equal and take the space of a letter, although 
it can be modified. 
 
Mid Spacing: Mid spacing are spaces between words. 
This should take the size of one character e.g. ‘A’.  
 
Letter Adjustments: Vertical letters should be spaced 
equally except in some cases as example AV, MV, TA, 
DA, OV, KA, etc.  
 
The importance of lettering cannot be over emphasized as 
it has a high demand in projecting a highly complex 
advertising displays. This is shown in posters, book 
covers, sign board design etc. 
 
Method of Lettering 

After drawing the guidelines with a hard pencil ‘H’ 
series, sketch the whole letters. Draw all the vertical and 
horizontal line with ruler, T square and triangular 
protractor, outline all carefully full in the centres with fine 
and bold inks.  
 

 
 

Fig 1: Using the grid system to construct letters 



Types, Lettering and Layout 

92 
 

Creative Lettering  
To be creative in lettering is to present and 

incorporate peripheral elements besides just letters. An 
example is the creation of ornamental letters, modified 
letterform, anthropomorphic letters and to mention just a 
few. 
   
Lettering for Emotive Design 

Emotive design engages people by eliciting feelings 
through the effect of design elements. In lettering, 
typefaces as design elements have various emotion which 
they can evoke in the psyche of people especially while 
building brand for either products or services. Script 
typefaces can be related to feminine, special, and fanciful 
feeling. Decorative typeface can relate to nonchalant and 
excitement or high-spirited feeling. Rounded typefaces 
(.i.e. puffy letterform whose strokes have round edges) can 
be related to fun and welcoming feelings. Serif can be 
related to luxury, respect, and glamour. San serif can be 
related to straightforward, sensible and neutral feeling. 
 
Lettering Design for Signage and Wayfinding  

Many buildings such as hospitals, terminals and 
airports, office buildings, supermarkets and other public 
facilities require signage and wayfinding. The problem that 
often arise when inside the building, including hospitals is 
people who were inside the building can be confused in 
finding directions, especially in conditions of panic. 
 



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Today, there is a paradigm shift in materials 
deployed for environmental sign design. Lighting has 
become an integral part of 3-Dimsenional signage that 
every tom, dick and harry craves to own one neon-lighted 
signage in their shops, irrespective of the cost. Outdoor 
sign design is an aspect of environmental beautification. 
This is so because signages provide vital information and 
direction for an existing business, and again, serves as a 
cost-effective marketing tool for small and medium-scale 
businesses. 
 

 
 

Plate 1: A sample of outdoor neon sign. Source: 
https://www.amazon.in/Bottle-Business-Signage-Decorations-

Personalized/dp/B09XGS5DL8 

 
Computer Generated Lettering  

Desktop programs such as CorelDraw, Adobe 
InDesign and Illustrator changed the tactile world of 
graphic design. Nowadays, many hand-drawn techniques 



Types, Lettering and Layout 

94 
 

of lettering of the past can be executed with computer 
applications. For instance, large stencils can now be 
arranged and printed on multiple A3 papers through a grid 
system built-in on the CorelDraw application, and joined 
later using masking tape. This technique makes room for 
easy stencil handling and extra-large stencil prints on 
various surfaces such as walls, and vehicles.   
 
Questions 

1. What are the various classifications of letters? 
2. What are the parts of letters? 
3. Construct letters using the grid system 
4. Making use of hand lettering to express the 

following emotion: fun, honour, love, peace, fear  
5. Give account of the significance of lettering as Job 

opportunity for graphic designers 
 
References 
Mills, C. & Weldon, L. (1987). Reading text from 

computer screens. ACM Computing Surveys, 19(4), 
329-357 

 
Wendt, D. (1994). Legibility. In: Font Technology. 

Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/ 

10.1007/ 978-3-642-78505-4_12 


