The 'Hidden Caps' series started accidentally. Besides my work as illustrator and designer I teach illustration, design and Adobe software at a design school. During one of my classes I instructed my students to experiment with letterforms. So just to show some examples I doodles around a bit with letters. Those doodles created new ideas which were the basis for the book you're now holding. Purely by looking at the form and rest form from a letter I saw that I could tell a story in which the letter took a natural place.

"The journey is without doubt more important and much cooler than the destination"

The whole proces has been a process full of joy and surprises. What started at first as an exercise changed into a real project after I'd seen the presentation of Mr. Bingo at the FITC festival in Amsterdam 2016. He presented his process from Kickstarter project to publishing his book 'Hate mail'. The idea of making my own book based on the letter shapes took place in my mind. His entire approach to succeed in his project was an eye-opener for me and worked very contagiously.

For one year, I was busy drawing the illustrations. They kept me going and working on the book became a trip on its own. Social media became a sort of post office for me. From there I send postcards to interested parties from where I arrived. Meanwhile, I tried to change my workflow and reinvented my own development process. For example, over time I had lessened the amount of sketching I did in my work. A process that I unfortunately also see with my students. During the months I worked on my book, I embraced sketching again and it has proven to be worth it, and fun.

Under time pressure illustrators jump to the first idea which comes to their mind and therefore rule out a lot of new, enchanting and challenging ideas. It is so much more rewarding to challenge yourself, to dig deeper and to watch further. I often hear students tell me the misunderstanding that they cannot draw and therefore cannot sketch. The idea exists that you must be able to draw well before you can sketch. That is downright nonsense! I dare say that the opposite is true for concept developing.

"The idea that you must be able to draw well before you can sketch is downright nonsense!"

When you’re still in the process of concepting it’s all about jotting down an idea. Concept stenography. The game Pictionary (a game in which others need to guess a word bases on your sketch) is usually won by people who cannot draw properly. The reason for this is easy: those people do not think about the drawing, they don’t think about the techniques of the drawing and the how-to. They just start. When you can jot down your first ideas then you are probably also able to combine those ideas to something truly new. That’s where creation starts. I usually make wordlists and mindmaps as a start. Those thoughts copulate with other thoughts and watch there! A new sketch is born. Some sketches originated quickly, others needed their time. And this is how you start your concepts. By hand. Not on a computer. A computer gets in the way of your process with command keys you need to find, tools that don’t work just the way you want them to and before you know you’ve lost your fresh concepts.

Of course, I have had moments in which I wanted to stop the ‘Hidden Caps’ project. Is still remember clearly something that happened when I just started with my book. Someone had send me some illustrations from an illustrator in America who makes drawings of buildings which were shaped as letters. There are more illustrators and artist doing that. I also remembered old BBC trailers in which the numbers of the channel were, just as in this project, sort of hidden. When I saw those examples I had a momentarily setback and thoughts as ‘my work is not unique’ crossed my mind. However, I realised that during my life I have been influenced by these images, the world around me and that, when I focus too much on that it would lead to nothing. When focussing too much on thoughts about not being creative or not being the first one to do or draw something your creativity will bleed dry. Nothing is new. Or perhaps it is since it’s you doing it.

"When focussing too much on negative thoughts your creativity will bleed dry."

To be honest, the trip to the end result was more exiting and interesting than the end result itself. It almost always is. Simply because of the experimenting. Again, before you start making your final drawings dabble around on paper. You will see, it works faster, much faster. For every letter in this book I came up with several ideas. Some ideas didn’t last and some ideas I worked out in Adobe Illustrator, the best program in the world (I’m an addict) But nevertheless, if I would have worked out all my ideas in Illustrator right from the start I wouldn’t be nearly halfway the book by now

I have had a lot of feedback from people who stood close to me during the whole project. Sometimes I got feedback about composition, sometimes about the idea itself and sometimes I let others choose one drawing over another. All of you have helped me greatly with persevering and with the creation of this book. What remains a challenge for me is the business and promotional part of a project like this. I had to find people, I had to convince them of my idea. I learned much from this process and maybe one of my most valuable lessons was that I should not downsize my idea but aim for the sky. I enjoyed my freedom during the process of sketching and I have had tremendous fun in coming up with new ideas. I’m very grateful for the book you’re now holding. We have arrived our destiny. Enjoy the scenery!

Lots of love,
Henk de Bruin.