School Daze

School Daze is a hand-lettered school themed calligraphic wrapping paper set. Each product represents a possible use for the wrapping paper. The texture on the wrapping paper products is hand-lettered calligraphy.

I spent two weeks during hurricane Harvey practicing hand-lettering, getting to know how letter-forms are drawn, and familiarizing myself with different styles of hand-writing. I tried different styles of hand writing, such as black letter, script, monoline etc. before settling on a style that fit my concept.

I decided the style of writing I would use for my set would be inspired by sign painting vernacular as it lent itself well to the tools I had.

Each item is conceptually based around a school subject. There are five “products” in total, one being the original “packaging” for the wrapping paper itself.

The writing on each item are definitions of terms related to the subject matter. The subject matter for each product goes as follows: Lunch bag–Biology, Wrapping paper–Physics, Text book cover–Calculus, Folder–Chemistry, Notebook–Geometry.

The set was written with varying sizes of white paint pens on custom printed colored graph paper. After each sheet was written, I cut, rolled, folded, and bound the products by hand. A coat of clear-gloss finishing gives the white paint a reflective sheen when light is shone on the products.