This week’s Letter with Me prompt is the delightfully mischievous word: jiggery-pokery, a noun meaning deceitful or dishonest behavior. It’s whimsical, rhythmic, and packed with potential for practicing a wide range of lettering styles!

Welcome back to the Letter with Me series! This week’s word is a beautifully specific one: petrichor — a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.

The challenge? Letter the word petrichor inside a circle.

I’m starting a new series this week, and I hope you’ll join me: Letter With Me — a weekly practice where we explore one word from the lettering list I shared last week).

Each week we’ll take one word and sketch it out in a few different lettering styles. Nothing polished, nothing final. I’m using my iPad/Apple Pencil since it’s easier for me to record my process that way. But feel free to use the same, a pencil/pen with paper, whatever you have on hand. It’s all about building that creative muscle, trying new things, and building a library of lettering styles you can pull from later for full compositions.

Technically a trick question because I personally don’t think it’s possible to stay motivated at all times for anything, much less practicing a new (or not-so-new) skill. Life gets busy, energy runs low, and the couch + your phone always seem to be calling your name.

But here’s a little something I’ve learned over the years: It’s not about motivation. It’s about discipline.

We’ve talked about spacing within a single word before and how it can totally change the look and readability of your lettering, but did you know spacing in your overall composition is just as important?

There’s no hard and fast, right or wrong when it comes to composition spacing, but there is one rule I stand by: be consistent.

Inconsistent spacing is one of the quickest ways to make your lettering look off, even when your letterforms are solid. And most of the time, it’s not something you notice until it’s already distracting from the message of your piece.

This week’s lettering tip is a continuation of our conversation around composition—and today we’re focusing on an easy (and super effective!) way to add visual interest to your quote layouts -

Varying the size and/or style of your words.