Letters by Lydia: Some Introductions

Hi everyone, and welcome to Letters by Lydia!

This is my very first post, and I’m so excited!!  To begin, I thought it would make sense to introduce myself and this series a bit.  As you probably guessed, my name is Lydia, and all you really need to know about me here is that I’m a pen addict.  I don’t mean your typical ballpoint, ‘dig around for it in the bottom of your backpack’ pens, but rather pens that are used for handlettering and art.  If you don’t know exactly what that means, no worries, just sit tight!  In my blog post each week, I plan on reviewing a different set of pens–I’ll give you my opinions, show how they can be used, and share some of the work I’ve done with them.  Beyond that, though, I really want to introduce people to handlettering in general, share some tips and tricks I’ve picked up, and maybe even spread my love for pens to a few other people.

To start with, let’s go over some super brief (and hopefully not boring!) background.  Handlettering, or lettering, has a lot of overlap with typography and calligraphy, but it’s essentially a combination of art and words.  I included some of my work below so you can get a sense of it, and if you want more examples you can check out my instagram (@letters_by_lydia).

And so you can see the scale of my addiction, here’s my pen collection, or at least the college apartment version (I have a lot at home as well).

Next week I’ll start with the pen reviews, which I can’t wait for! Please let me know if there are any pens you’re particularly interested in, any questions you want me to cover, or anything else.  Thanks for reading, and to all the umich students, I hope you have a lovely fall break 🙂