5 reasons to use lettering on envelopes

The written word alone is beautiful, but there’s no reason you can’t embellish it even more. Lettering refers to decorative words and letters found on stationery. Incorporating lettering on your cards is a fun way to work a little beauty into your messages. If you’re wondering what benefits come from creating artistic lettering, here are a few ideas:

1. Send a piece of art
Give your reader something to admire and happily stick inside their journal or scrapbook with hand lettering on the envelope or inside the card. The embellished version of a name on an envelope will make your recipient feel fancy, and the person also gets a piece of artwork that they can hold onto for years to come.

2. Show personality
Simply addressing an envelope to a friend is fine – it’ll get to where it needs to go. However, give the paper some real character by adorning it with swirling characters and colorful flowers or designs. Make the patterns and images on the paper match your friend’s personality by using ideas that remind you of that person.

3. Take the full space
If you’re writing a formal letter, you’ll want to follow traditional addressing guides with a small rectangle in the center for the recipient’s location and another space in the top left for your return address. However, if you’re writing to a friend, don’t limit yourself to these strict guidelines. Instead, take up the whole envelope, tilt your words and draw pictures! Take a little artistic liberty with the look and feel of your message that will make your pen pals excited to receive letters.

4. Retain history
Lettering has been popular since the written word was first developed. Scribes would embellish manuscripts with intricate patterns and borders that swirled out from the first capitalized word on the page. The styles have developed throughout the years, but you can easily incorporate these old designs onto your envelopes to get a Victorian or Romanesque feel.

5. Learn a new skill
If anything, working on your lettering abilities is a great way to gain a new skill. Doing this will help your writing precision and artistry. What’s better is lettering talent can be used for future events like sending out party invitations or wedding thank you cards. People will be impressed by your creative adornments, and you’ll be able to send an invite that’s not too bland.

Lettering can either be done by hand or digital means. Many professionals who practice lettering design will sketch out an idea on graphing paper so dimensions and angles are accurate before scanning them onto a computer.