Here is a recent album cover that I put my hand styles to use for. An amazing artist from New York who I've worked with before gave me the photo options for the cover and the back (which I also did tracklisting layout for), sent a link for the album, and put her faith in me to come up with something that fit both the music, the photos, and the artist herself.

I repeatedly and obsessively drew her name, taking up a total of 16 pages of my A4 sketchbook, in order to finally reach something that had the right feel and flow. I used some markers while making iterations, but predominantly used a fude-pen to achieve the desired look. My regular handwriting looks like doo doo, so it's incredibly amusing to put both myself and my hand into a different state, where I consciously work to first create different letter forms than what are natural for me, and then I have to execute them at a certain speed, with just the right feeling of hand and wrist movement. Move too slow, and there are tiny imperfections in the stroke that don't feel right. Move too fast, and some letters risk not being clear enough or balance could go by the wayside. The sweet spot is found within the right conditions, after enough repetition.

After the artist and I were satisfied, I put what I'd drawn into Illustrator, made vectors of it so she could utilize it in the future, and we settled on red for the final color a little while. So, the next time you wonder what goes into a 'simple title', consider that the road to an outcome can be much longer and more involved than what is imagined. Yes, some roads are shorter, but in my experience projects often take numerous iterations, at least in the formative phase, and after periods of passive work (where the ideas are left to marinate for later review), the solution starts to present itself.