Bounce lettering is brush script where the letters hop up and down instead of sitting in a tidy row. It looks relaxed and playful, which is why you see it on cards, chalkboards and party signs. Kelly from Kelly Creates teaches it by writing each word twice, once in her regular brush script and once bounced, so you can see exactly which strokes move and which stay put.
The idea is simple. Regular brush lettering keeps every letter between the same guidelines. Bounce lettering breaks those lines on purpose, letting some strokes drop below the baseline or rise higher, while the thick and thin strokes stay exactly as they were.
How to do bounce lettering: the rules in short
- Learn regular brush script first. Bounce is a variation, not a new alphabet.
- Bounce some strokes, never all of them.
- Keep vowels and ovals on the baseline while you learn.
- Bounce the second stroke of a letter, not its oval.
- Make exit strokes narrower and carry them up to where the next letter starts.
- Keep your thick downstrokes and thin upstrokes the same as always.
Pens and paper
Kelly uses four brush pens in the video: Kuretake Zig Brushables, Tombow Dual Brush Pens, Marvy Le Plume II and Sakura Koi coloring brush pens. A large, flexible tip like the Tombow makes the thick and thin contrast easy to see. The Koi gives slightly thinner downstrokes and is a good middle ground. Use smooth paper: a Rhodia pad, a marker pad or a good laser printer paper. Rough copy paper frays brush tips fast.
Why guidelines matter more, not less
It sounds backward, but you need lined paper to bounce well. You can only break the baseline on purpose if you can see where it is. Print a sheet with a baseline, waistline and ascender line, or rule your own in pencil. Once the bounce feels natural, you can drop the lines.
Pick a bounce pattern
A good first pattern is to bounce every downstroke that ends a letter, like the second leg of an h or n, and leave loops alone. Kelly keeps the ascender loops of h and k ending on the baseline, and drops the strokes that follow. Once you see a pattern, the word looks planned instead of messy. Write the same word three or four ways and keep the one you like.
Common problems
- Letters do not connect. Your exit stroke stopped too low. Carry it up to where the next letter begins.
- Misshapen ovals. You dragged an oval below the line. Keep the oval on the baseline and bounce the stroke after it.
- It looks chaotic. Too many bounces. Pick two or three letters per word.
- Thin, wobbly downstrokes. Hold the pen further back and at a lower angle, and press harder on the way down.
Practice ideas
Warm up with drills: compound curves, ovals and underturns. Then write short words with easy bounce letters, like hello, thanks, believe and happy. Holiday tags and place cards are a good low-pressure place to try it on real projects.
Keep lettering
New to brush script? Start with brush pen calligraphy and how to use a calligraphy pen. No brush pen yet? Try faux calligraphy with any marker. When you are ready to use it, letter some calligraphy place cards.
