Chalkboard typography with Zig Posterman markers by John Neal

Creating eye-catching Typography with Zig Posterman markers on a chalkboard

Some chalkboard signs call for an emphasis on text to get their message across. In this video, John Neal creates eye-catching chalkboard typography with Zig Posterman markers. Most of the emphasis is on what kind of event it is, a summer fair, and the date it occurs. The other important piece of info is where it is held, in this case at the Village Green. John does still add an illustration to the sign, but it is not a focal point. Part of what John does well is use several different techniques to add depth and visual interest.

Blending

John adds in some shadows and fill color with his markers, but then goes to add some dimension by blending with his fingers. The fill starts off simple, but he blends it to give the appearance of a gradient or feathering effect. Same goes for the shadows. Starting off as simple black lines, John blends the lines until they appear to look like a 3D shadow.

Another blending technique used is erasing. John decides he didn’t quite like the letter “R” at the end of “FAIR”, so he used a black marker to remove some of the edges of the letter. He simply then reused the white marker to draw over the black.

Colors on top of colors

Little dots of yellow are added on top of the blended blue-green he had already added to the word “FAIR”. This shows how easy it is to use different colors, without the fear of them mixing together like with other types of markers. As mentioned earlier, He also does this with ease when he adds in the shadows. This can help depth to an illustration, without having to spend too much time focusing on a more complex illustration.

We hope creating chalkboard typography with Zig Posterman markers will become even easier following these techniques.

You can watch John demonstrate these techniques in his Summer Fair video: