Customers will often come to us with a handwritten note that contains words or a phrase that they want to put on a piece of jewelry.
Sometimes, the words they want aren’t all from one note, card or document. In that case, customers send us images of the different documents, and our artists will use pieces from each of them to create the combined writing for the jewelry piece.
This can often be the case when someone is looking for a piece of memorial jewelry in memory of a loved one that has passed.
But what if you don’t even have the word you want in your loved one’s handwriting?
For example, you might have a letter in her handwriting, but it doesn’t have any or all of the words you want to put on the jewelry.
In that case, we can create the words from the handwriting sample by combining the individual letters from the document(s) you provide. It might be a recipe, or an old handwritten letter, or some other writing that has the letters we need.
In fact, we’ve even helped customers create a special message when some of the letters weren’t there (like with the silver handwriting cuff bracelet shown at the top of this post!) In that case, we have to get creative. With some fancy Photoshop footwork, a ‘d’ can be transformed into a perfect ‘p’ or a ‘q’, an ‘h’ can become an ‘n’, or an ‘n’ can be used to create an ‘m’. We’ve worked with many thousands of handwriting samples, and have plenty of tricks up our sleeve.
On the small chance the individual letter can’t be created from existing letters, we can hand draw the letter. To do this, we do a careful analysis of the handwriting sample we have – the size, the thickness, the writing angles, the style and sizes of ascenders and descenders, etc., to make sure it will be a perfect match.
Once all the letters are ready, it’s time to combine them!
A person’s handwriting can vary quite a bit throughout a document. An ‘i’ near the top of the piece of paper is often larger then one near the end, when the writer was running out of room! If an ‘i’ from the top is paired with an ‘s’ squeezed in from a word at the bottom of the page, the letters won’t look like they go together, and the resulting writing will look wrong together.
So, it’s essential to make sure all the letters all scaled to matching size & thickness.
Typically, the writing is cursive, so each letter then needs to have a hand drawn connector to the adjacent letters. Whenever possible, we use the existing connectors from the letters.
Of course, this is a time-consuming and painstaking process, and requires a lot of experience and skill. But the results are worth it to produce a precious piece of jewelry that’s exactly what you want.
Have questions? Let us know — we’re here to help!