What is Sans-Serif?

Sans-serif lettering is my favorite easy go-to style that I like to work with.

Sans-serif: Literally meaning “without serif”, a sans-serif letter is just that, a letter that lacks a stroke at the ends of the main strokes on a letter. These are seen in typefaces such as Arial, Helvetica, or everyone’s overused favorite, Gotham. Sans-serifs are great because they are easy to read and quick to create when lettering a word.

These work well for starting out as there’s a lot of room for play in terms of weight, heights, sizes, etc. 

Here are a few examples of lettering using a sans-serif, blocky style, and how much the look and feel can vary within that style.

Below you will find a PDF sheet that demonstrates more examples.

This is a simplified breakdown of how I build my sans-serif lettering.