I wouldn’t give up digital tools for any amount of money, but I have to admit that our modern software can sometimes result in sterile designs. Even if you’re not accomplished with the paintbrush or pencil, you can still add a human touch to your projects with hand-drawn alphabets from TheOrganicType.
The company has just released Volume 3 of its SketchType line, which includes 16 hand-drawn alphabets. In addition to letters, each alphabet contains numerals, symbols, and Spanish characters. Four of the type sets also have alternate characters, which lets you avoid a cookie-cutter look when repeating characters. Five of the alphabets are colored; the others are grayscale.
Note that these are not fonts; they’re 300 ppi PSD files that you can place in a program, such as InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, or QuarkXPress.
SketchType Volume 3 costs $299, or you can buy individual type sets from all of the volumes for $39 a piece.
TheOrganicType has posted tutorials on changing the color of individual letters and converting the PSD files to vector files. You can watch those videos below:
This article was last modified on January 18, 2023
This article was first published on November 22, 2011
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