Sketch pens: A must have poster design tool!

Many people appreciate well-designed posters, and often wonder how the designer created those clean lines on that perfect-inked poster. At some point of time in school or college, or perhaps during your favourite cricket match, you may have created some posters to express your thoughts. Indeed, it takes skill to produce such fine work. To some extent, the designer must have steady hands – like a pianist or surgeon; though you can always modify your work digitally using programs like GIMP and Photoshop. But the most fundamental component of such excellent work is always the quality of the instrument held in your hand.  

Sketch pens have been one of the favourite tools for most people when it comes to creating posters. They have been around for over 100 years, and the love affair with them for most people started since they were kids.  The bright and vibrant colours got most people attracted and then they stood hooked for a lifetime. The pen generally comprises a container (plastic, glass, or aluminium) and a core made of absorbent material that carries the ink. The nib is located on the upper part of the pen, and is made of a felt wick.

By 1958, the felt-tipped sketch pens were used widely for different applications, including labelling, lettering, and creating posters. 

How sketch pens can be used in poster design

These pens can be used in different areas of design, including:

·         Outlines and inking sketches – when inking a pencil sketch, it is best that you use smudge-proof ink. After all, you don’t want to take your time outlining your illustration in multiple line widths only to have the ink smudge at the very last moment when erasing pencil lines underneath. Even though most drawing pens are fairly smudge-proof, the outcome may be affected by the amount of pressure applies, quality of the eraser, and other factors.

·         Comic and manga illustrations – the artists seek to achieve thin lines for facial detail, a thick tip for filling shadowed areas, and different sizes in between for other outcomes.

In the case of poster design, the artist can use sketch pens to create intelligent doodles, give bold outlines to drawings and cutouts, outline big fonts, and even fill fonts with bright impactful colours to create a striking impression. It is for this reason that they are frequently used for scrapbooking, wedding invitations, greeting cards, and a wide variety of miscellaneous crafts.

Inks and Tips

There are two primary things that an artist has to take into consideration when choosing sketch pens: the ink and the tip. Archival inks are the most commonly used in creative projects because they are non-toxic, acid-free, and resist fading. Pigment inks do not dissolve completely in water, though they become water-resistant and fade-resistant when dry, making them ideal for professional use (though they start fading after 6-12 months).

There are also two types of tips: felt and metal. Metal tips are mostly used by heavy writers for taking notes and journaling, while felt tips, or fibre tips, are larger sized to create bold, crisp, dark lines for perfect sketching.

Elkos are one of the leading manufacturers of sketch pens in the world, providing artists with a range of remarkable pens characterized by clear impression, incredible style, consistent colour flow, distinctive colour variation, high self-life, and a cool selection of 12-colors. For more information on Elkos sketch pens, visit http://www.elkospens.com/sketch_pens.html.