The resurgence of hand lettering in commercial graphic design is wonderful. This represents a sustained market for the human qualities of personalized, post-modern letterforms. But hand lettering is more than a style, it is born from a direct relationship between the hand, eye and mind of the typographer/designer, and offers teachers an excellent way to engage young people into the history, terminology, form and selection of typography. This presentation outlines the process I have found successful, (and very enjoyable), to initiate the study of typography in my Typography 1 course, by starting with hand lettering. Based on Russell Laker’s 1946 text Anatomy of Lettering, The curriculum of the course guides the students through each letter, stroke by stroke, illustrating the geometry and sequence of strokes that creates each Roman capital, italic, numeral, and minuscule. Throughout the semester, As they learn-by-doing through iteration, I introduce the historical development of letterforms, such as how minuscules and italics were created, (as faster interpretations of roman letters), and why humanist letters look the way they do by introducing a 5mm nip pen. Students like that.