Ideally, set a regular time and place to practice your handwriting. Start with shorter sessions, even ten or fifteen minutes, that work well with your normal routines. Sticking to regular, doable practices will be more productive than trying to cover a lot of ground in occasional marathon sessions. Customize your practice to fit your lifestyle and personality. For example:
• If you love music, write out favorite song lyrics.
• If you’re a member of a book club, start a log to record a synopsis of each month’s selection or simply copy your favorite excerpts.
• Do you enjoy a good quote? Use your practice time to assemble a handwritten compilation.
• If your passion is sports, fill a notebook with trivia on athletes or teams you follow.
• If you love cooking, you may want to start a handwritten recipe collection.
• When I was expecting my first child, I filled a journal with letters to the baby. You’ll have much more incentive to write if the words line up with your interests, knowledge, and experiences.
Fortunately, there are a lot of ways to intentionally squeeze handwriting into daily life, if a set time and place won’t always fit into your schedule. They may not seem like much, but even a few minutes of writing every day will add up. You can also grab a few minutes of handwriting practice during television commercials, in waiting rooms before appointments, and when you arrive early for a production and are waiting for the show to start. When you’re on the go, get in the habit of making sure that your handbag or backpack is stocked with writing supplies.
handwriting heroes
Anne Morrow Lindbergh is well known for her timeless book Gift from the Sea. First published in 1955 and the top nonfiction bestseller in the US for over a year, it’s still in print today. In her first paragraph, she reveals, “I began these pages for myself, in order to think out my own particular pattern of living, my own individual balance of life, work and human relationships. And since I think best with a pencil in my hand, I started naturally to write…”
Read on to see how you can incorporate handwriting into other purposeful endeavors that benefit you and those around you.
Lists
If you’re a list maker, get in the habit of writing all your lists by hand. Even if you’re the only one who will see them, use your lists to implement the strategies you’ve learned for legibility and consistency. Writing out lists is also a great time to play with variations of capital letters or new styles of cursive and printing to expand your repertoire. Use lined paper for your lists to help with proportions and spacing.
If you like the idea of combining your handwriting practice with a happiness-boosting activity, start a gratitude journal. There are several approaches regarding how much and how often to write. You may want to:
• List a certain number of things you are thankful for every night before going to sleep.
• Write for a designated number of minutes every day.
• Write a longer, more detailed journal entry once a week rather than deciding on a predetermined number of items to record daily.
You can buy journals with writing prompts that offer guidance and fresh ideas if you get in a rut, or simply use a lined or dotted blank book to record your reflections.
handwriting heroes
If you’re not sure how to begin a gratitude journal, simply start by recording three things you are grateful for each day. Oprah Winfrey has talked repeatedly about her habit of keeping a gratitude journal. “Before bed,” she declared, “it’s my gratitude journal.…It’s enhanced and lifted my life in a way I can’t even describe.”
Besides providing regular handwriting practice, research conducted by the University of Minnesota and the University of Florida found that people who wrote down the positive aspects of their day before going to sleep reported feeling less stress and anxiety. Psychology professor Robert Emmons, a leading expert on the subject of gratitude, writes extensively on how exercises such as writing in a gratitude journal help you overcome hardships, connect with others, live mindfully in the present, and curb negative emotions like worry and self-doubt.
Bullet Journals
Keep a bullet journal or planner. Bullet journaling was introduced by Ryder Carroll after he had explained his journaling methods to a frazzled friend who was planning her wedding. She was mesmerized by the system he expounded and encouraged him to share his ideas with others. When he first published them in 2013, it didn’t take long before the bullet journal became a new obsession. People all across the world are discovering that besides keeping you organized, bullet journaling also provides a fun and trendy outlet for practicing your handwriting.
If you haven’t explored bullet journaling before, it’s an eclectic system of recording lists, plans, and diary entries all in one place and customizing it for your specific needs and goals. There’s lots of information online about how to get started and what features are offered in different brands of bullet journals, although any journal will work fine. When you peruse a few examples, you’ll see that it can be as simple or as elaborate as you want.
handwriting heroes
A prolific journal keeper, it’s estimated that Leonardo da Vinci created more than 20,000 pages of notes and drawings, of which over 7,000 pages have survived. For over forty years, he wrote by hand in journals about a shockingly broad array of topics that piqued his curiosity. He didn’t try to comply with society’s rules—his journals are filled with curious spellings, invented words, and his own version of shorthand. He also didn’t care too much about punctuation.
Because bullet journals include a variety of categories, they are the perfect platform to show off the different lettering styles you’ve learned here. There are no rules, so whatever your topic, mood, or page layout, you can switch back and forth between printing or cursive, slanted or vertical letters, capitals or lowercase. Spend as much or as little time on bullet journaling as you want, but it’s typical to spend ten or twenty minutes a day recording entries.
Notes
Write notes by hand during meetings and when listening to podcasts, sermons, or lectures. Take advantage of handwriting possibilities at seminars, classes, orientations, workshops, and training sessions. Not only will you be using valuable time for practice, you will remember things that you write down better than things you just hear. Even if it’s not necessary to record the content, you can still log some handwriting practice by taking notes on whatever words or phrases stand out to you.
Letters
Writing letters or sending cards is another great way to practice your handwriting, with a dual purpose of making someone else’s day. We all know what a welcome sight it is to find a handwritten letter among the bills, catalogs, and junk mail, and it only takes a few minutes of your time.
If you’re like me and have a hard time writing straight on envelopes, draw lines with a thick marker onto cardstock paper, trim it to size, and place it inside the envelope. Unless the envelope is lined or a dark color, you should be able to see the lines through the paper. Tuck cards or pieces of stationery in your purse or briefcase when you’re traveling, so you can write letters on the go when you have time to spare.
Handmade Gifts
One year for our daughter’s birthday, my sister surprised her with a personalized, all handwritten cookbook. She wrote out a few dozen kid-friendly recipes and brought the pages to an office supply store where it was spiral-bound and laminated into a keepsake that has been treasured for years.
handwriting heroes
“I’m an actress, a writer…a pretty good cook, and a firm believer in handwritten notes,” Meghan Markle said in an interview before her marriage to Prince Harry. “If the guy is going to write the girl a letter, whether it’s chicken scratch or scribble or looks like a doctor’s note, if he takes the time to put pen to paper and not typing something, there’s something so incredibly romantic and beautiful about that.”
Other customizable and memorable gift ideas might be compiling pages of handwritten adages for someone who loves words and sayings, writing your memoir in your own penmanship as a gift for your children or grandchildren, or handwriting a collection of words of advice for a graduate or newlywed couple. Use your imagination and come up with your own gift ideas.
Good Old-Fashioned Copy Work
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, copy work was the norm. Kids copied poetry, prose, quotes, and excerpts from great literature. It was a simple method for them to practice penmanship, but in time, other hidden benefits emerged. Putting their pencils to paper and copying correctly written passages was much more than a lesson in handwriting. It introduced students to the mechanics of proper language. They learned spelling, grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. They absorbed styles of different writers and poets.
This method of learning by imitation was considered a tried-and-true step in the process of learning how to formulate their own writing. Copy work fell out of fashion in the nineteenth century, when educators believed that teaching writing principles and allowing for creative expression was sufficient on its own to develop good writers.
However, the old school of thought regarding copy work has been recirculating. Do you love a good book and wish you could write like some of your favorite authors? Recent articles detail a revived interest in copy work. Why this archaic practice? Because of the incredible results it produces.
Jennifer Manuel, author of The Heaviness of Things That Float, encourages writers to open books written by authors they esteem and write out the paragraphs by hand, word for word. She did this every morning for a year and attributes producing her best work to this simple exercise, claiming that imitation, counterintuitively, helped her find her own voice.
handwriting heroes
Many famous authors favored copy work. Jack London wrote by hand every word from Rudyard Kipling’s works as an in-depth study into the writer he found most inspiring. Robert Louis Stevenson, known for his keen ability to choose just the right word, diligently wrote out passages from his favorite authors, read them carefully, and tried to rewrite them by memory after only a couple readings!
Similar to babies learning to talk, athletes honing their sport, and famous artists like Picasso spending years studying the greats, persistent attention to copy work exposes you to the flow, style, and syntax of truly great writing.
Modern writers and educators often coach their students to learn from many authors and genres to assuage the fear of copying another writer’s style. If you want your handwriting to improve, along with the added perk of developing your skill as a writer, keep a stack of your favorite books handy, and write out a few passages every day.
Social Media Platforms
Would you like an online record of your progress? It’s simple to create a separate social media account, such as an Instagram or Facebook page, to chronicle your handwriting adventure. Social media is also a great way to build a like-minded community of people all over the world. Commit to posting a few times a week or as regularly as you can.
On January first of 2017, I made a goal to create lettering every day for one year and post it on my Instagram account. Although I missed a few days here and there, I learned a lot about quieting my excuses and showing up whether I felt inspired to write something or not. I started carrying a notepad and pencils with me everywhere, practicing a few minutes in my minivan in the parking lot while waiting to pick up kids after sports practices or music lessons, and using other fragments of time that I hadn’t considered before. I kept a pen and paper handy for aimlessly writing whatever came to mind during longer phone conversations, and whenever I read anything from a book or article that jumped out at me, I stopped immediately and wrote it down.
These habits rewarded me with improvement, but also with great joy. In spite of the rapid-fire changes in our lives and in society, I was constantly reminded how writing by hand helps us slow down and process the things in our lives that really matter to us.
It’s heartening that people are joining the ranks of handwriting advocates, lettering artists, and calligraphers by the thousands. If you decide to post your handwriting journey on Instagram, use the hashtag #lostartofhandwriting so we can cheer each other on. By sharing your work and following others who inspire you, you’ll open yourself up to new friendships, encouragement, ideas, and resources to propel you further along your journey.
One of the most rewarding things about handwriting is the ability to think about the meaning of the word and express it creatively through how we write it. When words are written to visually correlate with the meaning of the text, this is called a calligram.
Calligrams can be a single word but also a phrase, poem, or text of any length. They range from very simple to elaborately illustrated. They can incorporate color and texture, but we’ll start with simple calligrams, using monoline lettering with a basic pen or pencil.
Creating a word so that it resembles its meaning is a compelling exercise and an ideal way to get out of a rut if you ever feel bored or stuck in your handwriting practice and want to try something new.
To start with, think of a word. Pause for a moment before picking up your pen or pencil. Contemplate what the word means to you, and let other descriptive words come into your mind. Imagine acting out the word, or think of people who remind you of your word. As much as possible, try to feel the emotion of your word before you write it. Now, let’s start the process of putting your word onto paper. Here are a few questions to consider if you don’t know where to start:
• Would your calligram be better expressed with uppercase or lowercase letters, or both?
• Does the meaning of your word fit best with slanted or vertical letters?
• Does the definition of your word seem more in line with printed or cursive letters?
• If printed, serif or sans serif?
• Would the meaning of your word be better expressed with simple letters or more ornate ones?
• Do you envision your calligram spread out or more concisely spaced?
• What about the base line? Does your word seem like it would sit formally on the traditional base line or bounce above and below the line to convey something about the meaning of the word?
• If there are any cross bars in your word, do you picture them straight or curvy, high or low?
• Does the definition of your word lend itself to flourishing or any other embellishment or illustration?
• When you think about the meaning of your word, would it be expressed better in tall or short letters, large or small, wide or thin, angular or rounded?
Depending on your word, you may think of other creative questions to ponder and ideas to doodle. There may be a letter in your word that lends itself well to expressing the meaning, such as the S in the word serpentine, or the O in the word global.
For an example, I’ll walk you through my thought process on a calligram I created. One of my favorite letters is A. I also love flourishing, so I wanted a word with a meaning that was conducive to flourishing. I decided on the word Artistic. The word artistic has different connotations for different people, but I concentrated only on the meaning through my lens of experiences.
Artistic. To me, it is an elegant word, yet generous, kind, and approachable. I envisioned it in script, but in a steady hand, rather than bouncing on the line. I wanted to express freedom and movement and joy, but in an orderly, balanced way. I used traditional letter forms, but added some unconventional twists on the cross bars of the A and t’s. I hoped to portray, through the flourishes surrounding the word, the connectedness and influence of community.
Another important point: it took a few attempts before the design caught up to my vision for how I wanted it to look. Some ideas were abandoned. At first, I didn’t have any flourishes below the word, as there are no letters with descenders. But I wanted to balance the flourishes on the top, so I added some free-floating flourishes on the bottom.
To hopefully spark ideas for you, I made a page of simple calligrams using a variety of words (see the following page). Again, it’s subjective how we each choose to express the meaning of words. For example, I chose to create the word Reality a bit humorously, with different angles, heights, and letter sizes. I wanted the word itself to express strength but not sugarcoat the imperfections that exist in ordinary life.
The words Energetic and Speedy are both sloping upward to show confidence, progress, and the optimism I associate with these two words. Kindness and Joyful both involve several flourishes. When I was drafting the designs, I thought of kind people looking for ways to reach out to someone as they go about their ordinary tasks, and joyful people, with the contagious quality of finding amusement in everything, and laughing often.
TRY IT: Copy the styles here and/or create your own. You might concoct a completely different way to write the same word, based on your own interpretation of the meaning.
My rendition of the word Grit might not be as tough-looking as the meaning suggests. I used all caps to show strength and determination, but curved lines to demonstrate the flexibility that has been necessary for me to reach goals I set for myself. The dots between the letters represent the sandpaper-like particles that smooth and teach us as we persevere.
If you’ve enjoyed perfecting your handwriting, exploring the world of calligraphy is a natural addition to the foundation you’ve already built. The difference between handwriting and calligraphy comes down to the tools and the rules.
Calligraphy is a broad field of study, but the two basic camps are:
1. Broad-edged calligraphy uses a nib with a flat edge, such as Brause, Mitchell, or Speedball, and is required for styles such as Italic, Foundational, Blackletter, and Uncial. The nib is typically dipped in either ink or gouache, and rules involve the precise angle of the nib, height of the letters, stroke sequence, and letter shapes.
2. The pointed pen is used for script styles such as Copperplate and Spencerian. This lettering requires using pressure on the downstrokes and releasing pressure to make thin hairlines for the upstrokes. These elegant, classic styles use an oblique or straight pen holder and a nib with a pointed tip, such as the workhorse Nikko G or the flexible Gillott 303. As in broad-edged calligraphy, the nib is dipped in ink or gouache that is prepared to the right consistency.
Modern brush lettering requires a flexible brush-tip marker, paintbrush, or water brush, and is derived from traditional script and printed letter forms. In both classic and modern calligraphy, you’ll find that styles of lettering artists can differ widely. Some of the current trends involve bouncing on the base line; mixing different styles; adding banners, flourishes, and other embellishments to create balanced layouts; and blending colors with special markers such as the Tombow series or Ecoline liquid watercolors. Chalk is also a popular medium for modern lettering layouts, and there’s an assortment of chalk and chalk markers available to create your designs.
This alphabet, along with the following quote by Albert Einstein, is a sample of some basic modern brush lettering using a Tombow Fudenosuke hard-tip marker. Brush lettering looks very similar to monoline handwriting, but the added texture of thick and thin strokes necessitates a little more time and attention to each stroke.
Did you know that April is National Card and Letter Writing Month? Stock up on stationery and try handwriting a letter or card every day in April. The US Postal Service promotes this celebration with these persuasive words: “Writing, sending and receiving letters…is a tradition that has preserved our nation’s history and has changed lives—particularly in times of war and times of personal triumph and tragedy. Unlike other communications, card and letter writing is timeless, personal, and immediately tangible.”
Brush-lettered lowercase letters.
In this example, you can see a simple layout of centering each line and adding a flourish off a descender on the bottom line.
Joining a calligraphy guild in your area will expose you to the best teachers available in all of these styles mentioned and more. You can also learn from books, take classes online, and watch tutorials.
If you want to explore more terrain in the realm of hand lettering, you may be wondering how to unearth your own unique style. A great way to start is by emulating handwriting styles and variations that inspire you, in order to build your confidence in the world of letters. After that important step, you’ll find that the more you take your practice beyond imitation, the more your own passions and preferences will emerge. When you give yourself creative license to sit with your writing tools and simply have fun with letters, your personality will find a stage on which to perform. It doesn’t always come easily or naturally, and for sure not overnight, but with persistent trial and error, your voice will come through in your writing.
You can also take lettering classes that are not your go-to styles, just to stretch yourself to learn new things. I’ve found that a skilled teacher who is passionate about the course material will open another world for me with their contagious excitement and expertise. All you learn will help build upon and improve what you already know. And the best part is that there is always more to learn.
