mapping a town by hand

[Urist]

How I was taught to do lettering for technical drawings, was to use a lettering guide. Which is basically a piece of plastic with holes in it.
You stick a pencil into the lettering guide and run it along a straight edge. Without moving the straight edge, you move your pencil to another hole and go along the straight edge again. Now you should have a pair of parallel lines. Generally, you want to use a hard lead so the lines are faint and easy to erase.
Next, you write between the lines. Using the same holes, all your text should end up being a uniform size. Then you erase the guide lines. (I was taught to make the lines 1/8th of an inch apart, which makes the letters readable without straining your eyes.)

Alternatively, there are stencils of various sizes, which would ensure all your letters are in the same style.

A cheat that some of my classmates used was to type up the required text in a word processor, print it out, and trace it on to their drawing.

The trick to good lettering is to take your time. Each stroke of each letter is as important as any other feature on the map. Perhaps more so, because if anyone is taking the time to read your labels, they are focusing on your lettering.

[dombekia]

thank you that was helpful