Lesson Nº0
Lettering sin límites.
Could we make a living drawing letters? Alejandra and I asked that years before I directed any machine.
silent ink loop · 12s
- Door: Can it even be done?
- Co-author, with Alejandra Perdomo
- Pencil, markers and Editorial Planeta
- 2017–present
- Published by Editorial Planeta, still in catalog
The blank page
In 2017 there was no machine anywhere in my process. There was a table covered in markers and a question Alejandra and I kept circling: could we make a living drawing letters? The books came after years of teaching: workshops, and online courses where more than 1,500 students learned the method stroke by stroke, and where every confused face told us which page of the method was lying. Editorial Planeta called after that. The books are those years of teaching pressed onto paper, three volumes that promise a stranger the method works without us in the room.
The studio wall
scroll sideways →
the keyframe, drawn before animating
the three books, on the worktable
the tools, on the table
Three honest weaknesses
The crit
A book cannot be updated. The errors we found after printing are still there, in every copy, and will be forever.
What we have not solved is what to build for them next. The method is solid and the students who finish the books keep going with us in the online courses. What we do not have is the next product worth making for someone who already learned all of this.
We stopped at three books on purpose. We were never going to milk it into eleven volumes that sell the same thing with a new number on the cover. The cost of holding that line is that the book series is finished, and the next thing for these students, whatever it turns out to be, will not be a book.
Shipped & taught
- My Lettering, founded 2017 with Alejandra Perdomo
- 3 books with Editorial Planeta
- More than 30,000 copies sold
- More than 1,500 students trained online
What this taught me
We turned a craft into a method and the method into products: workshops, online courses for more than 1,500 students, three books with one of the biggest publishers in Spanish, and brand work for Adidas, Noel, Vélez and Panamericana, among other brands. What I am proudest of is that the system kept working without me in the room. It is also the only project on this site I did not build alone, and you can tell. Alejandra and I together were better than either of us apart.