Grab your pens and get creative during the year’s spookiest season - from leaves to pumpkins, seriously scary to fun and friendly Halloween lettering.

The leaves are starting to turn a glorious orange, people are throwing out their summer wardrobe for their autumn outfits…

One of the best things about autumn is, as it’s a transition season, we get to see nature get to work winding down for winter. So what better way to celebrate the harvest season than by getting creative with autumnal themed lettering!

Below are how to recreate my favourite Halloween lettering designs.

“Happy HALLOWEEN” on leaves

What you’ll need:

• a fallen leaf (a big green one is great for this)

• yellow / pink / blue paint pens (but any colours are great). I’m using Posca PC-3M bullet shaped

1. Using faux calligraphy write the word ‘happy’ towards the top of the leaf

2. Then thicken all the downstrokes remembering to smoothly transition out of the thick stroke towards the bottom.

3. Starting to the left - with plenty of space - start creating smart capitals for ‘HALLOWEEN’ bouncing the letters across to the right.

4. Thicken the downstrokes / stems for the letters, adding little serifs at the ends of the letters so they’re a little spikey.

5. Finish the design with stars and dots to bring it all together - and add a bit of life!

“HAPPY Halloween” on pumpkins

What you’ll need:

• a pumpkin (a munchkin or mini pumpkin is great too)

• purple / pink / yellow paint pens (but any colours are great). I’m using Posca PC-3M bullet shaped

1. Start creating smart capitals for ‘HAPPY’ across the top of the pumpkin (you may want to go slightly higher than you think).

2. Thicken the downstrokes / stems for the letters, adding little serifs at the ends of the letters so they’re a little spikey.

3. Starting to the left - with plenty of space - start creating ‘HALLOWEEN’ in faux calligraphy. You might like to write it in monoline first.

4. Then thicken all the downstrokes remembering to smoothly transition out of the thick stroke towards the bottom.

5. Finish the design with stars and dots to bring it all together. Dots are magical - start sparingly and keep checking to make sure its looking balanced.

Halloween-themed words on pumpkins

What you’ll need:

• a pumpkin (a munchkin or mini pumpkin is great too)

• Paint pens - colours are great, but you could go black and white. I’m using Posca PC-3M bullet shaped

1. Start anywhere with a word - mixing up lettering styles as you go around the pumpkin.

2. For ‘Scream’ I’ve mixed the cases too - twisted, huh! So it’s S-C-r-e-A-M and made the top half of every letter thicker, so it’s pointed towards the bottom.

3. For ‘boo’ I’v gone for a bouncy faux calligraphy style.

4. For ‘TRICK’ I’ve gone for basic capitals. Simple is sometimes great to make other styles stand out.

5. For ‘halloween’ and ‘spooky’ I’ve left them as monoline calligraphy.

6. I love twisting the words so they’re all dotted about at different angles.

7. Finish the design with small triangles, zig-zags, stars and dots to bring it all together.

My top tips? Get creative, don’t over-think it, have fun and maybe even rope some others in to join you in a Halloween Lettering sesh!

Want to learn more? Join me for an upcoming workshop, become a Lettering Insider and get all the creative juice and freebies!