THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman:
Well Hey there. This is your host, artist, Miriam Schulman, and you’re listening to the Inspiration Place Podcast. I am so thrilled that you’re here. In today’s episode you’ll discover why honing your unique lettering style is the key to profitability. The three ways to make money with hand lettering and which way might be best suited for you. And why hand lettering is different from computer generated graphics and where it’s used. To help me out, I’ve invited the expert in hand lettering.
Today’s guest is driven by her passion for bringing creatives on the same road to success that she took. Successful students of her hand lettering courses, have landed mural jobs, editorial work among many other lettering projects and have launched her own profitable creative businesses. She started her hand lettering business in 2015 while raising a young family in Singapore. Since then, she’s worked with clients such as Apple Singapore, Penguin Random House, Workman Publishing, Faber-Castell to name just a few. Please welcome to the Inspiration Place, Mye De Leon. Well, hey there Mye. Welcome to the show.
Mye De Leon:
Hey there. Thank you for having me here. I’m so excited.
Miriam Schulman:
I’m so excited too. So Mye and I know each other. I want to say in real life it feels like it’s real life but it’s only been through the screen. Right?
Mye De Leon:
For almost like six months now.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s right. So like many of my other guests, people who’ve been hearing a lot about the Mastermind that we both belong to because I bring so many people on it because it really is a great group, right?
Mye De Leon:
Yes indeed it is. I learned so much in there.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. And then we get to hang out together. I invited you because of course my audience is super interested in this subject. I know there’s a lot of people who really are interested in lettering. I don’t actually teach the kind of lettering that you do. My lettering is more for our journaling and personal use and what you do is really teach people how to monetize the art of lettering. So let’s break down a couple of different concepts so that people who are new to this understand what we’re talking about. First of all, how is hand lettering different than computer generated graphics?
Mye De Leon:
All right, so basically hand lettering is the art of drawing letters. We use pencils and papers. It’s traditional way of doing it. But these days we already have like iPad, iPad Pro and all those stuff. But still the drawing part is still there. The good thing about that is it’s highly customized. So whatever you request, whatever requirements the clients or the customers want, you can truly come up with something absolutely new and haven’t been done before. It’s more raw, imperfect and that’s what I like about it. I’m kind of like loving the edgy part of it not the super smooth flow of the letters. I like the touch of imperfections. So that’s basically what’s make a difference.
Miriam Schulman:
So why would a client want something that has more of a hand lettering look rather than a computer font like a cool font?
Mye De Leon:
Yeah, over the years, the hand lettering trend, it’s been continuously rising. It’s probably because we are living in a digital age and the sense of, they’re kind of looking for the human touch, the connection, the human connection and it’s lacking these days. So to reach the customers better, the new way to do that is through delivering value with that allows others to connect better which we enter when we enter. So hand lettering allows our customers to get their message out in a fashion where it’s handmade, it’s done by someone who is a real person. It doesn’t look like something that’s generated in the computer. So it has a personal touch on it. And that’s what most of our customers actually want.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. Why don’t you share with us one or two projects, we talked about Apple or Workman. Could you pick one or two of your favorite ones?
Mye De Leon:
I actually have one here behind me. So,
Miriam Schulman:
Why don’t you show it and I will help describe it.
Mye De Leon:
Okay. So for this project I was given a layout which is a speech bubble. So if I use a certain font to fit this noisemaker style in the speech bubble, it’s going to be a lot difficult for me to do that. And that is why I was commissioned to do this. And with my hand lettering skills, I was able to fit the words noisemakers in this very tiny space that has a unique layout. It’s kind of round and of course it comes out with that call-out.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. So I’m going to describe it. There’s a big speech bubble and noisemakers takes up half of it. And what Mye did is the word noise kind of has, it’s almost like rounded to fit the arc of the top of the speech bubble. And then she used the letter M K and R in the makers, kind of extending, I would call them [Sarah’s 00:00:06:16]. Is that the right term to use? Like added Sarah’s to the letters?
Mye De Leon:
Yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
To make it fill in some of that negative space. So yeah, it’s really cool what you did there. Okay. So now I don’t know if you feel comfortable sharing this, but how much did they pay you to do that project?
Mye De Leon:
It’s a four figure close to five but.
Miriam Schulman:
Wow, that’s amazing.
Mye De Leon:
But it’s not the only thing. There is chapter titles inside so I have the book cover and then the chapter titles and then I have names of those, the women that they are talking about in here. So like,
Miriam Schulman:
Basically it’s almost like getting an illustration job but it’s just for the lettering part of it. Is that right?
Mye De Leon:
Yes, indeed.
Miriam Schulman:
And just for people who don’t know, four to five figures means she’s talking five figures, 10,000 right? So it’s somewhere in that range. Something just under 10,000.
Mye De Leon:
Close to that. Yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
People, If you want to make 50,000 just doing the math for you, you only need four or five of these jobs to make 50,000 a year. Is that right, Mye?
Mye De Leon:
Basically, yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
Just so people understand like what we’re doing.
Mye De Leon:
But that’s not only it, there are people who are getting five figures like $60,000 project from hand lettering because they’re doing like big things.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. So tell us, we want some of that. So tell us what would be a $60,000 job? That is like amazing money.
Mye De Leon:
Potentially movie posters. Yeah. So we also get commissions for that. But it also depends on who the client is and how much volume we’re bringing into them. The amount of the rate that we can charge the client depends on how much volume we’re giving them.
Miriam Schulman:
Is it hard to get these jobs? I mean is it competitive? Like how do you get a job like that? Do you need an agent?
Mye De Leon:
I don’t have an agent. Unfortunately I did not have an agent, but I thrived even without it and that’s what I was actually teaching right now. Like you can still get commissions and get paid really well to do hand lettering projects even if you don’t have an agent. But the key thing is you’ve got to hone your skills like big time not just simply learn it today and then tomorrow go ahead and pitch your work to someone else. It’s not, it doesn’t work like that. For me, it took me two years to consistently show up and as I keep on showing up on my Instagram feed like every single day. So that’s kind of how I started. I’m a nap time entrepreneur.
Miriam Schulman:
A nap time artist.
Mye De Leon:
Yeah. A nap time artist.
Miriam Schulman:
love that. Is that like, does somebody else already coined that? Because I might coin that if nobody else had.
Mye De Leon:
I don’t think there is anyone who thought about that yet. Not that I know of. So you can coin that for sure.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay, cool. Totally. That’s how I started too with my portraits and nap time art. It’s except my second child didn’t nap.
Mye De Leon:
He didn’t nap? Mine is a good napper. He naps about two to four hours in a day.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s so nice. My oldest daughter nap twice a day and then my son came. He was like, “No too much going on for me mom, I am not buying into this whole nap thing.” So luckily he had nursery school and then he also had play dates. So I was a play date artist. So far we’ve talked about book illustration and movie posters and you say there’s three ways, main ways that you can make money doing hand lettering. So what are those three ways?
Mye De Leon:
So there are three different, for me there are three. That’s what I learned. Number one is by creating products with your hand lettering. So it can be stickers, posters or merchandise with your hand lettering on it. Those are a couple of the things that I have tried before. I also had cell phone cases with my hand lettering on it. So there was that.
Miriam Schulman:
When you say products, do you mean products that you’re producing yourself or do you mean like licensed products? Like somebody’s-
Mye De Leon:
Both.
Miriam Schulman:
Both, okay.
Mye De Leon:
Yeah. So both. You can produce your own product or you can have it like get on print on demand sites and have it, have them do it for you so you just get commission, all the sales. You can also do that. Yeah. The second one is client work, so this is what helped me really get my business growing over the years, so I got more client work. When I first started my first paid lettering gig, I did not even know that I could make money from it. Honestly I was just sharing.
Miriam Schulman:
I didn’t know that either. I thought all this stuff is done in the computer. Who knew?
Mye De Leon:
I know, right. Because I was just sharing my stuff. I was lonely at the time. I was a bit depressed with my son’s diagnosis and I can’t do anything. I can’t even design my scrapbook designs anymore because he doesn’t want me to leave his side and I can’t go on the computer. So that’s about the only thing that I can do. Hand letter on grid notebook and use the micron pen to do it.
Miriam Schulman:
Mye, you were talking about your son’s congenital heart diagnosis. Is that what you’re referring to?
Mye De Leon:
No, not just that he has that, has been corrected at the time but he has Down syndrome. So my son has special needs. So he has Down syndrome and he needs a little bit of extra care more than a typical child does. So we have doctor’s appointments, therapies, multiple doctor’s appointments because he has a lot of medical conditions. I felt like taking care of him full time took something away from me. Not that I don’t like it, but it felt like it because when you have a child, at least that’s how you feel. They take everything away from you and you’ve left with nothing. So it was lonely [crosstalk 00:12:02].
Miriam Schulman:
Like I’ve said like a nursing never ends.
Mye De Leon:
I know.
Miriam Schulman:
They’re just sucking you dry the rest of your life.
Mye De Leon:
And living in a foreign country could be lonely. I have no relatives in there. I have few friends that I don’t get to see often because I cannot go out often. So that’s what I did. Basically hand lettering and sharing it with the world. And six months of showing up on Instagram. I got my first paid client and I didn’t even realize it because I don’t know how to do compositions at the time. I can only do letters and words because that’s about what I know. She sent me a message and asked me, “I’ve seen your letters on Instagram and would you be able to do coloring book that’s all about letters?” I was like, “Sure.” I did not even know that the very thing that I’m showing up for is exactly the kind of job that I would be hired for. So,
Miriam Schulman:
Perfect. Was that Random House?
Mye De Leon:
No, that was the first one was MiniLou kids. It’s a coloring book company in the US.
Miriam Schulman:
Nice. Really nice.
Mye De Leon:
Everything started from there. After that, more projects just came in. I was consistent with showing my progress and people keep seeing it.
Miriam Schulman:
But I just want to highlight a few things you just said just to make sure people processed it all. So, first of all, what Mye said is that she started off doing this hand lettering really to fulfill a personal gap to do something for yourself because you’re putting so much into your children. You wanted to put something back into yourself. And I think that’s beautiful. And I love the way that you found this organic path that now not only are you filling this personally to be creative but now you are contributing and helping with your family. And I know that these therapies that you’re said have have to be expensive.
Mye De Leon:
They are.
Miriam Schulman:
So yeah of course they are. That’s great. I don’t know that we actually covered now the three ways to make money because we started off with talking about putting them on products. So what are the other two?
Mye De Leon:
So the second one is client work. That’s the one I mentioned. The client work it’s where I get the bulk of money that I earned the first time. So I worked with, first is MiniLou and then eventually I went to bigger publishings like Workman Publishing and then I got Penguin Random House and then I have an appeal to certain publishing companies practically because of what I’m showing up in Instagram. So that’s it.
And then the third one is teaching. So I started teaching workshops because as I keep on sharing my work, people keep asking, “How can I do that? I want to learn how to do that too.” And then eventually I was offered to have an online course but I was too chicken at the time. I didn’t want to do it because I feel I don’t have enough skills yet. I was just starting, it’s just less than a year.
Miriam Schulman:
This is impostor syndrome at its best. People were already paying you.
Mye De Leon:
Yeah, I know.
Miriam Schulman:
To do it, right?
Mye De Leon:
Yeah, I know. Yes it is. Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. Like how dare you. Did you know you’re supposed to have some sort of certificate to be able to charge money? Right?
Mye De Leon:
At that time I wasn’t aware of the impostor syndrome. Right?
Miriam Schulman:
But that’s what it is. Yeah.
Mye De Leon:
But that’s what it is. So when I became more aware of that, I just took care of it. So I deal with it. So when people kept asking, I said, “well, if I want to get more experience in teaching, I better start teaching.” So,
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, exactly.
Mye De Leon:
I reached out to an artshop because they were holding workshops in there and I offered my hand lettering workshop because they don’t have it there. So that’s the start of my teaching weeks. And then eventually, as you know it, now I’m teaching online.
Miriam Schulman:
Yes. Honing your unique lettering style.
Mye De Leon:
Yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
How do you discover your own style? Because that’s a question that I get asked by my students. Not about lettering but just in general all the time about finding your own style. So do you have words of wisdom about that Mye?
Mye De Leon:
Yes, I do. Because for me, you don’t just discover your own style, you consistently work for it and it will naturally show over the years as you consistently work on your art, your passion. Your natural style will eventually emerge and you will not be the one to take notice of that. The people who look at your work will be the one who’s going to tell you, “Oh, I can spot your artwork from a mile away,” because they already know what your signature style is. To be honest, I’m not even aware of it until now. But people know my artwork, my hand lettering, even if they’re cued up on Pinterest, it’s side-by-side along with all of these many hand lettering pieces in the internet so people can still spot my artwork and that’s good. That’s when you know, “Oh I have arrived. I have a certain style that people notice now even if I don’t put my name on it.”
Miriam Schulman:
That’s interesting that you say that you, other people notice it first. Because I have that with one of my clients inside my artist incubator. I’ll just give her a shout out. Carol Herd-Rodriguez, she does these landscapes and she also does still lives and she didn’t see them as being the same style. And I was like, “No, just the way you make your still lifes, these pairs and these apples, they look just as monumental,” as when she does the landscapes of the cliffs. Like it has the same monumental quality, the same jewel tone quality. So even though they’re completely different subjects, it still has the same style. And that’s when you know you’ve matured as an artist is when you do have a recognizable style and that doesn’t mean you don’t experiment and you don’t evolve. That is key really. When artists have their own unique lettering style, how does that help their career?
Mye De Leon:
When I started, I am one of the generalists, so I just have this general hand lettering artwork and I’m getting jobs. Yes. But I did not start getting. I was in the four figure but in the bottom four figure.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah.
Mye De Leon:
But when I started developing it, because I love patterns. I’m a surface pattern designer before I became hand lettering artist.
Miriam Schulman:
I didn’t know that.
Mye De Leon:
Yeah, I was. And I incorporated it with my letterings so I had practice different styles and get my patterns as boarders and I designed letters and I designed letters as patterns so people took notice of that. And then when I showed up more of it, that’s when I get to the top like four figure and then eventually crossed five figure mark.
Miriam Schulman:
Beautiful.
Mye De Leon:
Because when you have a certain distinct style, the client looks for that specific unique artwork that only you or a few people like you can deliver. When you niche down into something more specific, people are so afraid of nicheing down which they don’t know. When they do that, yes they get less client but they get high paying clients.
Miriam Schulman:
Because the client, if they’re looking for a peach, they want a really juicy peach. They don’t want something where they’re not sure if they’re going to get an apple or a peach. Right?
Mye De Leon:
Yes, exactly. And that’s what’s good about it. And I have known artists do have generally niche down from hand lettering to tactile lettering to tactile lettering to stop-motion-hand-lettering. And they did it really, really well that eventually this very niche has expanded into something more. That’s what actually happens when you have something unique because people will look up to that unique awesomeness, unique awesome proposition that you have.
Miriam Schulman:
So you teach both how to hand letter as well as how to get these jobs? Or is it just one or the other?
Mye De Leon:
Both. I teach both. So I teach the skills and I teach how you can make money from hand lettering.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s awesome. So Mye, do you think it’s okay for someone to sign up for your video series if someone’s never done this before or do they need to already have some experience before doing it?
Mye De Leon:
Yeah, it’s okay. I’ve had clients who started absolutely newbie and she was the one who I mentioned like who finished 12 murals during her first full year in business.
Miriam Schulman:
We didn’t even talk about murals. So how does hand lettering fit into murals?
Mye De Leon:
So murals are different art forms like their illustration murals, graffiti, those kinds of stuff. And then there’s hand lettering. So if you’ve been to San Diego, you will see a lot of hand lettering murals. They’re done by my good friends, Roxy and Phoebe of Banner Design Co. So we have lettering murals too. So if you see such work it would says like, “Hey have a good day.” So those kinds of artwork, they’re mostly done by hand lettering artists.
Miriam Schulman:
I didn’t realize that. That’s awesome.
Mye De Leon:
They painted though. They paint it.
Miriam Schulman:
Now I can hear somebody out there listening because I can hear what they’re saying to me. Can somebody out there listening right now and saying, “But Mye, I don’t have good handwriting.” Do you think that matters?
Mye De Leon:
No, it doesn’t. So many hand lettering artists that I know of don’t have good handwriting.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, I don’t either. Mine is awful.
Mye De Leon:
Because drawing is different.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, yeah.
Mye De Leon:
Drawing is different.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. Do they have to know how to draw?
Mye De Leon:
No. No. I don’t know how to draw. The only thing I know how to draw his letters.
Miriam Schulman:
Beautiful. Okay. So by the way, I was hoping that those were the answers to both of those questions but I have to asked that because I know that’s what people are thinking out there. Either I can’t draw or I have terrible handwriting. Right? Do you hear that too Mye from people?
Mye De Leon:
Yes, I do. Yes, a lot. A lot has been telling me about that and I keep telling them that it doesn’t matter. Once you learn the steps, it’s going to be so much easier and then you just have to explore and add your own personal touch to every letter that you’re drawing and you’re on it.
Miriam Schulman:
All right. What about supplies? So if we’re inviting people for this video series, are they going to need supplies for it? And by the way, this video series is free. It’s a schulmanart.com/lettering made it really easy for you to find because I really want you to see it all. So do they need supplies for your free video series?
Mye De Leon:
No. No. Basically if they want to start learning the skill, hand lettering because I might do something really crazy. Yeah. The only thing they need is pencil and eraser and paper.
Miriam Schulman:
Perfect.
Mye De Leon:
No fancy papers, no fancy things. Whatever you have.
Miriam Schulman:
Is there a lot of expensive supplies that they’re going to need to learn the skill?
Mye De Leon:
No. People have got to know this. I started with just as Staedtler pencil that I have. It’s an old, old Staedtler pencil that I did not even, I don’t know when I bought it and then an eraser and a grid notebook. That’s it. That’s what I started with.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. Which by the way, just so you know that in my art journal class, which has nothing to do with professional hand lettering, it’s just for fun. That’s what we use to, we use a composition grid notebook.
Mye De Leon:
Funny, right?
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. Because of the lines. It makes it easier. And then what kinds of things to color in? Do you recommend begin or start with?
Mye De Leon:
I call her everything digitally.
Miriam Schulman:
You draw everything and then you scan it in and you color it in digitally?
Mye De Leon:
Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
What computer program then would I need to have if I wanted to do this?
Mye De Leon:
I use Adobe Illustrator.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. Is that expensive?
Mye De Leon:
I have the Adobe Suite which I’m paying about less than $50 per month. It’s quite a bit expensive because before you just have to buy the license and it’s yours now it’s subscription. So,
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, I think you still can buy the illustrator if you don’t want the subscription.
Mye De Leon:
Yes. I think you can just buy one software for that. But I have also started, before I got this Myofascial pain syndrome, I started working on colored pieces traditionally since I worked with Pilot pen USA. They sent me a couple of colored pens and they were quite fun. So if you have colored pens at home, you can use those too. It doesn’t really matter whether you use digital or traditional pens.
Miriam Schulman:
Right. So people who may be just want to learn the art of lettering but then they’re not trying to get illustration jobs. They could just color it in themselves, right?
Mye De Leon:
Yes, exactly.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s what I do.
Mye De Leon:
Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
My Posca pens.
Mye De Leon:
Oh, the Posca pens. They’re so much fun.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh my gosh. The painting behind me which they can’t see but you can. I use Posca pens too.
Mye De Leon:
Oh my goodness. It’s gorgeous.
Miriam Schulman:
I went on a trip to visit my in-laws this weekend and I brought my art journal with me and my Posca pens and I had so much fun with this colors that today I wanted to make a painting using those same color. So I use Posca pens on the-
Mye De Leon:
Oh my God, you can still paint. I’m jealous.
Miriam Schulman:
You have to schedule it. There’s so many things that you and I do in our business. It’s so easy not to do our art anymore.
Mye De Leon:
For me it’s quite different because I have the Myofascial pain syndrome that gives you pain from the head up.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. You were saying that quickly and I didn’t quite catch it. So what is it that you have?
Mye De Leon:
It’s Myofascial pain syndrome.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh my goodness.
Mye De Leon:
It started because of a bad posture. I keep hand lettering like for hours and I don’t give myself breaks.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh my gosh.
Mye De Leon:
So this is a very hard lesson for me. And then eventually I had this pain and I had to stop doing hand lettering for now.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay.
Mye De Leon:
Because if I do, it’s going to be so much painful from the neck, my shoulders, and it can go on for months.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry. That’s really-
Mye De Leon:
Yeah, but it’s good. All it’s good. That’s why I have devoted more of my time into teaching what I do because I cannot do more of it, so I might as well just share the knowledge.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. All right, Mye, this was so inspirational. So finally to wrap this all up, don’t forget about the free three part video series that Mye’s having. You can actually though sign up for it now to make sure you get the video, video one schulmanart.com/lettering. If you’ve enjoyed the content that we shared here today, you’re going to absolutely love, love, love it. Because Mye’s graphics are just beyond and you want to know what this stuff looks like. So to get to that, to save your spot, here’s what you have to do. Go to schulmanart.com/lettering and that’s how you can save your part in the video series and make sure you sign up and it’s not going to be available forever. So unfortunately if you’re listening to this podcast in May, it won’t be there anymore. So make sure when you sign up and you get the video, you make time to watch all those videos right away because they are fantastic and they’re absolutely 100% free. Give us your Instagram handle now Mye, just so they can hear it.
Mye De Leon:
Okay. So my Instagram handle is Mye De Leon, that’s M-Y-E D-E L-E-O-N.
Miriam Schulman:
All right, Mye, do you have any last words for my listeners? Did we leave something out that you want to make sure you share with them before we call this podcast complete?
Mye De Leon:
I just want to say that for those who aspire to become hand lettering artists, it’s always possible whenever, whatever stage you are, even if you’re just starting out or you have some experience on it. You just have to learn the basics again and then continue from that. And really, just be willing to deliberately practice so that you could get better way faster than everyone else because those who get better, your practice really, really deliberately and make time for it, not fine. They make time for it are the ones who get better, faster than others.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s fantastic. Thanks so much Mye, for joining us today.
Mye De Leon:
Thank you for having me.
Miriam Schulman:
This is so much fun. All right. schulmanart.com/lettering. All right, my friend. Thank you so much for being with me here today. I will see you same time, same place next week. Make it a great one. Bye for now.
Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart. On Instagram, @schulmanart and of course on schulmanart.com.
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