Technical lettering is the process of forming letters, numerals, and other

characters Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

technical drawing Technical drawing, drafting or drawing, is the act and Academic discipline, discipline of composing Plan (drawing), drawings that Visual communication, visually communicate how something functions or is constructed. Technical drawing is essent ...

. It is used to describe, or provide detailed specifications for, an object. With the goals of

legibility Legibility is the ease with which a reader can decode symbols. In addition to written language, it can also refer to behaviour or architecture, for example. From the perspective of communication research, it can be described as a measure of the p ...

and uniformity, styles are standardized and lettering ability has little relationship to normal writing ability.

Engineering drawing An engineering drawing is a type of technical drawing that is used to convey information about an object. A common use is to specify the geometry necessary for the construction of a component and is called a detail drawing. Usually, a number of ...

s use a Gothic sans-serif script, formed by a series of short strokes. Lower case letters are rare in most drawings of

machine A machine is a physical system using Power (physics), power to apply Force, forces and control Motion, movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to na ...

Methods of forming letters

# ''Freehand lettering'' is done without the assistance of tools. To regulate lettering height, commonly 3 mm (-in),

guidelines A guideline is a statement by which to determine a course of action. A guideline aims to streamline particular processes according to a set routine or sound practice. Guidelines may be issued by and used by any organization (governmental or pri ...

are drawn. # ''Mechanical lettering'' is done using tools such as lettering guides, templates, or using a small mechanical

pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...

referred to by the Keuffel and Esser trademark "Leroy" # Modern drawings are lettered with

computer-aided design Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

software.

Freehand lettering

The letters to be drawn, though freehanded, should be stable and graceful. In some cases stability is impossible; for example, ''P'' and ''F'' are unavoidably top-heavy. In other cases the stability and grace of the letters may be maintained either by drawing the lower parts of the letters like ''B'',''E'' etc. wider than the upper parts, or by drawing the horizontal line at the center of these letters just above their geometric axis. (Exception: In case of the letter ''A'', the horizontal member is drawn below the geometric center, to maintain ''equality of areas below and above the center line''. If a horizontal line is drawn exactly at the center, then the difference in the areas of the triangle above the line and the trapezium below the line is much larger. This creates an unusual effect to our eyes.) Emphasis should be on the overall beauty of a word, rather than individual letters. Most freehand lettering is done in a "

gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

" style, i.e., with a constant line thickness; either "straight gothic", with vertical strokes perpendicular to the baseline, or "inclined gothic", with vertical strokes at about 75°.

Mechanical lettering

Mechanical lettering is sometimes done using a

, a device consisting of four bars ("links") which are pinned to each other to form a

parallelogram In Euclidean geometry, a parallelogram is a simple (non- self-intersecting) quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel sides. The opposite or facing sides of a parallelogram are of equal length and the opposite angles of a parallelogram are of equa ...

. The links can pivot about these pins. The lowermost link of the parallelogram is fixed to two rigid supports. One vertical link at one end is connected to a profile tracer, which traces the profile of the letter to be drawn, and the second vertical link and the other horizontal link are jointly connected to a pencil that draws the exact shape of the profile traced.

Dimensions of letters

* ''The Nominal Size of lettering'' is defined by the height (h) of the outline contour of the upper-case (capital). * ''Central Line'' is the imaginary line in the middle of each line or line element which is a constitutive part of a graphic character set. * If we consider ''d'' as the width of the line element and ''h'' as the height of the line element, then the two standard ratios for d/h are: 1/14 and 1/10, which are feasible because they result in a minimum number of line thicknesses. * ''Location of Central Lines'' – The nominal size (h) and the spacing between characters (a) shall be taken as the basis for defining the central line. *''Range of Nominal Sizes'' – The nominal size is typically one of the sequence 2.5 mm, 3.5 mm, 5 mm, 7 mm, 10 mm, 14 mm, 20 mm. Successive members of this sequence are approximately in a ratio of the

square root of 2 The square root of 2 (approximately 1.4142) is a positive real number that, when multiplied by itself, equals the number 2. It may be written in mathematics as \sqrt or 2^, and is an algebraic number. Technically, it should be called the princip ...

, as in the

ISO 216 ISO 216 is an international standard for paper sizes, used around the world except in North America and parts of Latin America. The standard defines the "A", "B" and "C" series of paper sizes, including A4, the most commonly available paper size ...

series of

paper size Paper size standards govern the size of sheets of paper used as writing paper, stationery, cards, and for some printed documents. The ISO 216 standard, which includes the commonly used A4 size, is the international standard for paper size. ...

s. *''Lettering Angle'' – The lettering may be vertical (upright) or inclined (sloped) to the right at 75° from the horizontal. Compare

oblique type Oblique type is a form of type that slants slightly to the right, used for the same purposes as italic type. Unlike italic type, however, it does not use different glyph shapes; it uses the same glyphs as roman type, except slanted. Oblique and it ...

. * The spacing between two characters may be reduced by half, if this gives a better visual effect. * Various letters are divided into number of parts so that dimensions will be accurate.

* The size of letter is described by its height. According to the height of letters, they are classified as Lettering A or Lettering B.

Lettering A

Lettering B

References

* * * * * *Engineering Drawing Practice for Schools and Colleges: SP46(Bureau of Indian Standards)
A textbook of freehand lettering by Daniels, Frank Thomas 1865
*

in the Engineering Section of Integrated Publishing Website {{European calligraphy Technical drawing Typography Standards