ENGINEERING LETTERING

Prepared by Engr. John Paul V. Timola, LPT

Reference: Lectures by Marifa S. Torralba, PhD

INTRODUCTION
 Before printing was introduced by Gutenberg in the 15 th century all letter styles were made by hand and their designs were
modified according to the taste of the individual writer, such as .
 The plainest and most legible style is the from which the single-stroke engineering letters are derived.
 The American National Standards Institute in 1935 suggested a standardization of technical letterings made by Reinhardt
using the single-stroke Gothic letters.
 Uniformity is essential in any lettering style.
 Uniformity in height, proportion, inclination, strength of lines, spacing of letters (stability of letters) and spacing of
words
 The use of light GUIDE LINES ensures uniformity in height

EXERCISE 1
 Using the grid lines of the graphing paper as guide lines, write all the letters of the alphabet in vertical and inclined letters
(upper and lower case) including the numerals. (pencil only)

 Height of uppercase letters and numbers: Width of uppercase letters:

6 units, i.e. 7 lines, 6 spaces 6 units – T, O, M, Q, V A, X, Y
8 units – W
1 units – I and no. 1
5 units – remaining letters and numbers

 Height of the body of the lowercase letters: 2/3 uppercase height

 Width of lowercase letters:
4 units – a, c, e, s, u, o, v, x, z, b, d, k, g, p, q, y,
3 units – f, h, j, n, r, t
5 units – m, w
1 unit – i, l

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