Architectural and Engineering Lettering

Architects and engineers have their own kind of lettering. Traditionally, the letters are all upper case
"sans serif" lettering styles which means plain block lettering such as the fonts such as "Helvetica", as
in the example below:

Students in these fields learn to letter by hand, even though they will be doing much of their work on
the computer, because design sketches are always done in pencil, as are many other types of sketches
such as preliminary drafts, and design ideas.

Architectural hand lettering is done in pencil, using light "guidelines", and there are some important
rules to follow. Good architectural lettering does not go above or below the guidelines, and the letters
are all uniform in shape and size. No part of any letter may go above or below the lines. Good and bad
examples are shown below:

Good architectural and engineering lettering is important, and takes lots of practice. You will only
have to do one worksheet on lettering, and if you do this carefully and corrcectly, you will not have to
do it over again, and you will learn good lettering. For the rest of this course, whenever you do any
freehand drawings, you must use good architectural lettering.

FREEHAND LETTERING