Getting Into Calligraphy: How I Came to Love It

For years I've been wanting to get into calligraphy and typography but between being a full-time student, training to bike from Austin, Texas to Anchorage, Alaska and just having a personal, fulfilling life, it's hard to sit down and pick up a new skill. I think these blog posts on calligraphy and typography will allow me to gain an overall understanding before I actually start playing around with nibs and ink.

You know how in elementary school they handed out those terrible large papers with the dotted lines and dotted letters for you to trace. Well, I know the first time I laid my eyes on them I fell in love. There was something about tracing each and every letter perfectly and getting every curve right that got me really excited. Most kids don't get excited over tracing letters, so I was the odd one.

I remember going home every day in fourth grade with written papers. It wasn't that I was dissatisfied with the content of my papers, but I was dissatisfied with my handwriting. I would spend hours rewriting my papers just to make sure they were presentable the next day when I turned them in. I would practice my handwriting incessantly and do my signature about 100 times over and over again. I think this is where my obsession with my handwriting began and my love for calligraphy and typography.

photo source: Pinterest