February 2022,  Ted DeCagna needed a video to demonstrate his art of hand lettering skills. Many clients think hand lettering is just “calligraphy” which of course is the decorative lettering done with a chisel point pen that creates those beautiful classical custom letters on a diploma, certificate or invitation.  Ted’s skills are technically called  “Hand Lettering” which is the custom hand drawing and rendering of logotypes and lettering from scratch or modified existing fonts intended to create a special logo that no one has seen before. “The best designs are not a standard font using a font that’s straight out of the computer”. Ted has excelled at this skill since 1988. He studied hand lettering under the guidance of top New York typographic designer Ray Baber at Pratt Institute.

Studies show people are fascinated by artists and artisan that work with their hands, whether that be a sculptor chilling stone, a mask maker in Venice Italy creating a masterpiece mask or a wood carver chiseling that beautiful Stradivarius violin from cherry wood, custom hand-crafted artists are fascinating!

Ted decided the best way to demonstrate his skill is with a series of over the shoulder angle video clips that reveal the early and final stage of a hand lettered logo at his conventional drafting desk where Ted executes his creative logos using drafting mylar, special razor-sharp pens, architectural template guides of circles, ovals, ellipses and French curves are the special tools designers use to assist in the very time consuming, meticulous process of creating these special logotypes.

Teds video shows a wide variety of different hand lettering styles from Spenserian Script logotypes to dynamic corporate logos with lettering you will be hard to find elsewhere.  Ted selected an upbeat, classical sound track to complement this classical art form all very well edited into one short film. His final results are an exciting and entertaining one minute and 40 second video with floating design elements that fall into place and special effect star bursts that “say it all” and helps make the Art of Hand lettering very clear to interested potential clients.

Ted currently has earned 28 design awards of excellence for his outstanding logo design, largely because of his very distinctive lettering designs.