Calligraphy Alphabet

Calligraphy just means “beautiful writing”, it was the script by used to hand write books. The calligraphy alphabet was used by many for about 15,000 years. And it goes without saying that this resulted in many different forms of calligraphy.

Calligraphy today is used to create decorative hand written notes, invitations and to decorate photo albums and keepsake articles like scrapbooking.

Lower case letters have 3 parts

The main portion is the x-height

The upper part is the ascender

The lower part is the descender

The most commonly used calligraphy alphabets today are:

Italic Calligraphy

This alphabet was used during the Renaissance by the Italians. This is easy to read and learn as it is not too dissimilar from what is taught in schools today. Using a slanted version of the Roman Calligraphy can be used to make the capital letters more decorative.

All the letters of this calligraphy alphabet are made with one stroke. With the pen held at 45^O for the formation of all letters.

Gothic Calligraphy

This alphabet is very ornate and was used in the 12^th to the 15^th century and is also known as black letter calligraphy. The letters are normally place very close together as it developed when paper was scarce and the letters where placed close together to preserve paper. The decorative strokes added either at the top or near capital letters are called beaks and claws. For this alphabet the pen is also held at 45^O for the formation of all letters.

Uncial Calligraphy

Uncial (pronounced “un-shull”). This alphabet was also used to hand write books about 1,500 years ago. This alphabet is relatively easy to learn as there are no upper case letters to learn. An interesting fact is that originally this calligraphy alphabet did not contain the ‘j’, ‘v’, or ‘w’. The ‘I’ was used as a ‘j’ the ‘u’ as a ‘v’ and the ‘w’ was a double ‘u’. The pen position for this alphabet is held at 30^O, which is also known as the flattened pen position.

Roman Calligraphy

The roman calligraphy alphabet is what is currently used in books and newspapers. It’s easy readability makes you think that this is an easy calligraphy alphabet to learn, however it takes as much practice as any of the other to get a professional creation. The pen is also held in the flatten pen position.