How to write like an architect

Architecture school can do some funny things to you. For instance, it makes you very particular about pens. Architects and architecture students alike are obsessive about their pens, many even have a favorite one that they will use for everything. If you take an architecture students favorite pen, prepare yourself for WWIII. Why are we all so obsessive about pens you ask? I think it’s simple. Part of the craft of being an architect is being able to sketch, draft and letter. 

 If you ask around today, most people will tell you it’s a lost art form. And in some aspects I agree with that. You will never ever ever ever see an architecture firm today produce a set of drawings by hand. Why? Because it takes a painstakingly long time. I have had the pleasure of rummaging around the storage room of the office I currently work in, and have spent time gawking at the hand drafted sets they have. The level of detail and consistency in these drawings was amazing. But then I had to go back downstairs and draw floor-plans on CAD. 

What I really love about hand drafted sets is the lettering. It’s all so consistent and neat, almost like I’s been printed. Compared to that my own handwriting looks like chicken scratch. Learning to letter is a skill that takes a lot of time and a lot of practice, both of which are things you do not get a lot of if you are in school perusing this career. I am lucky to be at a school that has a great balance between sketching, hand drafting, lettering and technology. The first two years of my architectural education, everything I did was by hand. At first, I thought I sucked. I couldn’t even draw a straight line, and they make you over and over again until you do. And line weights? Forget it. My old professor called me “the girl with the heavy hand” because to him all my line weights looked the same. And then there was lettering. Architects write in all caps, and that’s what they tried to teach us to do. Why? Because it’s legible. If your handwriting couldn’t ben read clearly on a blueprint, your building could fall down. 

Architectural lettering is characterized by a few things. Letters are not written in one stroke like cursive, but rather they are made up by lines and “strokes” of your pen or pencil. The main character though is the verticals of the letters. We are taught by the book Architectural Graphics by Francis D. Ching (see picture above) to being by using a straightedge to create guidelines and a small triangle to create the verticals of each letter within the guidelines. Guidelines are a way to keep your letters consistent in height. This allows your lettering to communicate to the reader and not distract from your drawing itself. 

The only way to become good at architectural lettering is to do it. If I try really really hard and write really slow my lettering in OK at best. I’ve decided that from this point on, I will write only in architectural lettering. This is why architects are so obsessive about pens. They are the tool in which we display an art form that identifies us with our profession. So I’m going to stop typing and go practice lettering with my Pilot V-Ball 0.5m Pure Liquid Ink Pen. It’s my only one so if you take it, I’ll find you!

-A