The Ancient Form Of Calligraphy

Calligraphy – The art of beautiful writing

The word calligraphy is derived from two Greek words – “kallos” meaning “beauty” and “graphẽ” which means “to write”. Literately, calligraphy can be interpreted as beautiful writing. It is more of a visual form of writing rather than traditional method of writing text. Generally, a broad tipped instrument, or a specialized brush, is used to create different types or forms of strokes on a medium such as paper, papyrus, or even clay. The oldest forms of ancient Greek writing consisted of simple symbols which were scratched into sun-dried clay dating back to 1400BC and 1200 BC. While ancient calligraphy has been in existence since the Egyptian and Mesopotamian times, the art of calligraphy has significantly evolved today to include more characters and writing methods than those used in the past. Many old and ancient forms of calligraphy are not entirely decipherable, and may appear to be more of an organized form of scribbling, rather than anything else. As on today, calligraphy can be either classical or may include non-classical and modern forms of writing. A professional calligrapher generally both the forms of writing.

Calligraphy in the modern times

The art of calligraphy still flourishes today, and is very much in vogue in many places around the world. The style is very often used to design wedding invitations and in decorating invitations with unique pieces of text. It can also include unique font designs as well as typography, and can used to draft original hand written letters, religious text and art, formal and informal announcements, corporate graphic design, specially commissioned calligraphic forms of art, unique cut- stone inscriptions, and even official documentation. Calligraphic font faces are also used for displaying the credits and titles in motion pictures, TV shows, testimonials, birth-and-death certificates, maps, and other unique forms of writing.

Materials required for calligraphy

• Pencil or stylus
• White tracing paper
• Ruler
• Pens with thin and thick tip sizes
• Magazines
• Newspapers

How to create calligraphy

To start with, you need some samples. You could check out old magazines or newspapers for unique types of printing styles, known technically as “fonts”. Once you have decided upon some unique types of fonts, take up a tracing paper and place it carefully over the typeface. Make sure the tracing paper does not shift, or change its position once it is placed. Using a fine tipped pen or a stylus, trace out the writings upon the tracing paper. Make sure you slant your handwriting in a particular direction, and maintain the slant in a uniform manner while tracing the font faces. The tracing paper should only be used until you master the handwriting. Once you feel confident, you can just reproduce the style without using the paper.