Learn Calligraphy: The Complete Book of Lettering and Design [Paperback]

Margaret Shepherd (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 20, 2001

In an age of myriad computer fonts and instant communication, your handwriting style is increasingly a very personal creation. In this book, Margaret Shepherd, America's premier calligrapher, shows you that calligraphy is not simply a craft you can learn, but an elegant art form that you can make your own.

Calligraphy remains perennially popular, often adorning wedding invitations, diplomas, and commercial signs. Whether it is Roman, Gothic, Celtic, Bookhand, or Italic style, calligraphy conveys class and elegance. Margaret Shepherd makes this ancient art form accessible in a completely hand-lettered technical guide that will:

* Provide context for calligraphy as an art, exploring the rich tradition of hand-lettering and mapping the evolution of the most popular styles.

* Give detailed technical advice on choosing pens, paper, and inks, setting up your workspace, mastering various pen angles, along with step-by-step illustrations to guide you as you practice.

* Explain which alphabets are appropriate for different forms of writing. For example, the Roman alphabet works well for short, unpunctuated passages, while the Italic alphabet is more suited to informal everyday communication.

* Encourage you to personalize your lettering by using variant strokes and interpreting how you would like the words to look on the page.

* Inspire you with carefully chosen illustrations and examples, which bring letters to life.

In Margaret Shepherd's own words, "Calligraphy trains not only your eye and hand, but your mind as well." Learn Calligraphy is the authoritative primer for this age-old craft, and will help develop a new appreciation for lettering as you discover your creative personality.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

In an age of myriad computer fonts and instant communication, your handwriting style is increasingly a very personal creation. In this book, Margaret Shepherd, America's premier calligrapher, shows you that calligraphy is not simply a craft you can learn, but an elegant art form that you can make your own.

Calligraphy remains perennially popular, often adorning wedding invitations, diplomas, and commercial signs. Whether it is Roman, Gothic, Celtic, Bookhand, or Italic style, calligraphy conveys class and elegance. Margaret Shepherd makes this ancient art form accessible in a completely hand-lettered technical guide that will:

* Provide context for calligraphy as an art, exploring the rich tradition of hand-lettering and mapping the evolution of the most popular styles.

* Give detailed technical advice on choosing pens, paper, and inks, setting up your workspace, mastering various pen angles, along with step-by-step illustrations to guide you as you practice.

* Explain which alphabets are appropriate for different forms of writing. For example, the Roman alphabet works well for short, unpunctuated passages, while the Italic alphabet is more suited to informal everyday communication.

* Encourage you to personalize your lettering by using variant strokes and interpreting how you would like the words to look on the page.

* Inspire you with carefully chosen illustrations and examples, which bring letters to life.

In Margaret Shepherd's own words, "Calligraphy trains not only your eye and hand, but your mind as well." Learn Calligraphy is the authoritative primer for this age-old craft, and will help develop a new appreciation for lettering as you discover your creative personality.

About the Author

Margaret Shepherd is a noted calligrapher and author, with an impressive roster of high-profile clients. She has published thirteen instruction books for calligraphers of all levels. All her books, including the bestselling Learning Calligraphy, are done in hand-lettered text. She has researched, taught, written, and freelanced extensively, and has exhibited her work in many museum and gallery exhibitions. She lives in Boston.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill; 1 edition (February 20, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767907329
• ISBN-13: 978-0767907323
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.4 x 10.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,157 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #23 in Books > Arts & Photography > Other Media

More About the Author

Margaret Shepherd is a writer, calligrapher, and teacher. In addition to The Art of the Handwritten Note, she has written thirteen books on calligraphy. Each year she speaks at MIT's 'charm school' about the importance of gracious communication. She lives in Boston.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

134 of 138 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for learning, June 9, 2003

By 

Gary Bisaga "Christian Father and Husband" (Leesburg, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Learn Calligraphy: The Complete Book of Lettering and Design (Paperback)

I am learning calligraphy and have looked at a number of books on the subject. This book is almost perfect. She gives you so much more than alphabets: key exercises to do before you start the alphabets, typical beginner's problems (most of which I have experienced!), practice pages you can reproduce. Her sections on swashes and "accessorizing" Gothic capitals are also wonderful - what had always seemed highly mysterious to me turns out to be a matter of combining building blocks, creativity, and - who would have thought - a lot of fun.

One thing she does not do is to cover every hand imaginable. There are lots of books like that out there. Rather, she only covers a small number of hands, but covers them very thoroughly, with a special eye to us novices. For example, once I got the basic hands down, I found one of my main problems was spacing the letters. Nothing looks worse than inconsistent horizontal spacing. She gives good coverage to this important issue, for example suggesting that you step back and look at it from a distance. Try it - if you're a novice, you'll be surprised at how different (and maybe bad) it looks.

I also very much enjoy the samples of projects that she shows as examples of how to apply each hand. In this she highlights the talents of (I assume) her friends, and it adds to the book. Looking at alphabet after alphabet as is done in typical calligraphy books, you don't get a good feel for how you'd use each one, and variations you can apply. Her other book "Calligraphy Projects for Pleasure and Profit" (which I also have) gives you lots more along these lines, but the ones in this book are different and I find them just as valuable.

I even like the way she letters the whole book in her (what she admits is slightly idiosyncratic) italic hand. You want examples - there's a whole book-length example. I don't agree with the other reviewer that this detracts from the book. It's as if she does it because it's fun - an important thing to remember when you're doing the drudgery of straight lines or circles.

The only tiny drawback, if it is one, is that the book doesn't contain a lot that is good to know about techniques of setting up a drawing table, selling, etc. For that (as well as an excellent chapter on type design by Hermann Zapf himself), the book "Calligraphy and Illumination" provides more than you ever wanted to know. I don't think that book replaces this one, however. I find Margaret's explanations well worth the small amount this book costs, and she is much more complete. She'll even autograph it for you (see her web site for details).

This is a wonderful book that every calligraphy student should have. If you can only have one, this is it.

76 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic..., November 28, 2001

By 

Janice Campbell "Freedom is not in doing what... (VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Learn Calligraphy: The Complete Book of Lettering and Design (Paperback)

This is the book I use as a text for beginning calligraphy students at the local community college. All the text is handlettered and there are many examples of how to use calligraphy in everyday life. I've used Margaret Shepherd's books since the '70's, and this is the best one she's done for beginning to intermediate students. It is both instructive and inspiring.

101 of 107 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Response with gratitude, May 25, 2005

By 

Margaret Shepherd (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Learn Calligraphy: The Complete Book of Lettering and Design (Paperback)

I am the author of this book and just want to respond that I agree with the very critical reviewer who felt strongly that Copperplate should have been included. I wish so too. But it would need a whole other set of supplies and hand positions. Copperplate comes along much later, and is really outside the main core of the broad-pen historic hands. Maybe some day!
To respond to Gary Bisaqa's review, I agree and I have covered the business end of calligraphy as a free-lance job, in a whole other book, Calligraphy Projects for Pleasure and Profit.
I wrote this, like all my other books, because I wish I'd had such a book when I started out. Thank you to others who wrote in to say that it helped them start out too.