ITALIC LETTERING (how to form italic letters)

Italic calligraphy is a little more decorative than roundhand, but maintains a very regular appearance. This is partly to do with the letter-forms themselves and partly about factors such as spacing and proportions.

So, anytime you want people to be able to read easily what you have written, and at the same time for them to notice that the writing is beautiful and a little formal, consider using italics.

Italic lettering step-by-step

If you haven't already seen it, you might be interested in the 'italic calligraphy' page, which gives some general practical tips on how to write the script.

This page now goes into the nitty-gritty of exactly how you form italic lettering. There are several basic movements which you will use again and again for similarly shaped letters. Learn these and not only will your italics improve, your everyday handwriting may well benefit too.

You may already have seen the illustration of an italic letter 'a' on the 'Italic Calligraphy' page.  However, we're not going to begin with 'a'. Instead, we're going to get straight into the fundamental structure of an italic alphabet: thedownstroke.

Notice that your downstrokes should all be parallel. For different letters, they begin and end in different places above, on or below the baseline. But each time the stroke is slightly slanted off the vertical, and is also parallel with every other downstroke.

The downstrokes above are not very slanted. They could be more so.

Note here too that there are different acceptable ways to start and end a downstroke. Sometimes they begin with a little 'tick' from the left, sometimes with a thin slant from the right. The main thing is to use a tiny motion of the nib one way or the other to get the ink flow cleanly started for a well-formed letter.

Don't mix methods within the same passage of italic calligraphy!

Of course it is just 'i' and 'l' that are formed of only a downstroke. Other letters need a horizontal line or cross-stroke to complete them, so practise drawing smooth horizontals too:

I just wanted to show you that horizontals are important for several letters. The italic forms to practise right now include just 't', 'j' and 'f'.

Notice that the 'tails' on descenders, for 'j', 'f', etc, are formed by joining a cross-stroke to a downstroke with a slight curve into a thin line. Although the strokes are almost at right angles to each other, they do not join by forming a sharp corner.

Once you can draw a short downstroke and a horizontal, it's time to combine them in a different way again by using a branching stroke. This 'branch' is a key element in italic lettering.

Here it is in its simplest form to write an italic letter 'r':

Notice how the same branching stroke forms the 'r' when stopped high, but if carried on down forms an 'n'. Equally, a slightly narrow italic letter 'n' without a final flick is the first half of an italic 'm'. See how in the final 'm' there are two 'n's joined together? Italic lettering is very much about repeated shapes.

In the illustration above, the branch drawn right from the bottom of the letter at the baseline up 'through' the first downstroke. This method gives a more cursive feel to the letter and will help you to write italics more rapidly and fluently in time.

To push the nib up you must hold it very lightly, keeping it always at 45 degrees, and 'skim' it gently up across the page into the branching point. As the pen stroke begins to curve diagonally up to the right, separating from the downstroke, you can let the nib 'bite' the page a little more. Once you are into the next downstroke, put normal pressure back on the nib.

So the rule is pressure right off for upstrokes, light pressure on for downstrokes.

However, if you find it difficult to do upstrokes at all, you can start your branching higher up, as follows:

The first 'm' is drawn with the more cursive upstrokes. The second is drawn with diagonal strokes starting higher. Try to make sure your arches are smooth with no sharp internal angles where they meet the downstrokes.

Once you have got the hang of drawing branching strokes, a couple of other italic letters come within reach:

The italic letter 'h' as you can see is an 'n' with a high ascender to start with. Make sure the second, shorter downstroke is parallel with the first.

The 'k' should start its branch just like an 'n' or 'h', then tuck sharply in to form the bow. Draw the leg out so its foot strikes the baseline a little back from the furthest point of the bow. This helps gives the body of the 'k' a slight slant, in line with its ascender and the rest of the italic alphabet.

Two more letters formed using the italic 'branch' are 'b' and 'p'. They are just the same except that one has an ascender, the other a descender. Here is 'b' to start with:

When drawing an italic letter 'b', form the branching curve quite narrow at the top and let it bulge out a little, gracefully, before curving back in again towards the base.

The horizontal joining stroke should not be too long and square or your 'b' will look clunky.

Here is 'p', for which exactly the same rules apply:

For a flourish on ascenders in italic lettering, you can draw a horizontal off the top of the letter towards the right, just like the tail on the 'p' in reverse. Then the 'b' would be an exact duplicate-in-reverse of the 'p'.

Now for a different kind of branching stroke:

These two italic letters look quite simple to draw but make sure your pen is at 45 degrees and that you have a slight slant on your downstrokes so that you get a good contrast between the thick and thin.

Again, the version is about an upstroke. If you have trouble with that, stop the curve of the letter-form before it starts moving upwards, and draw your downstroke to join with it.

Branching strokes should be practised a lot. Now is a good time to learn about arcades. These are exercises consisting of rows and rows (and pages and pages) of scallop-shapes like multiple 'n's and 'u's:

It is also very useful to find sequences of italic letters like 'minimum', 'nilulinul' or 'munumini' and to write these repeatedly to practise transitioning from one form to another within a line of italic lettering.

Enough munumini? Enough branching strokes? Never fear, you will be back to practise them some more before long :-)

Let's get onto some curved letters: 

Notice with these three that the same basic movement is used to create the first curved stroke.

Remember that italic lettering has a slight slant, so the bottom curve of these letters should be positioned a little further to the left than the top curve. That is decided when you make the first stroke. Draw it to fit an imaginary slanting line.

After drawing that first curve, 'c' has a short, quite straight top.

By contrast, 'e' loops round very tightly with a longer hairline diagonal to meet the downstroke.

Make sure your 'o' is not circular but oval, and also slightly slanted. Imagine it is made of two tiny circles, one on top of the other and offset to the right. Draw round these two tiny circles and you'll get the slanting oval 'o'.

Drawing line after line of 'o's is another valuable exercise. I won't illustrate it here. You can imagine all those zeros easily enough. (Draw a '1' at the beginning and visualise the page as next year's income ... )

Now for another rounded letter made of two offset circles: 

This is another letter which it pays to practise again and again. 

There are two main pitfalls with 's' as an italic letter. One is to make the finishing-strokes too horizontal and straight. This makes the 's' look spiky. Another danger is to make the first snaky wiggle too wide and horizontal. This leads to an 's' with no slant to it -- a roundhand 's' instead of an italic.

When you are reasonably happy with 's', it's a good time to move on to a whole new family of italic lettering forms:

To form an italic letter 'a' you may push the pen back a little from right to left to start with. Bring it round in a smooth lozenge shape, with a slightly pointy base somewhat over to the left. (This is what gives the body of the letter its slant.) Add a cross-stroke at the top and a crisp downstroke at the same slant as the rest of the letter (and any other italic lettering on the page).

The same technique applies to 'd', with a long descender instead of a short downstroke:

Try to get the descender of 'd' to overlap the upstroke perfectly. The bottom half of the letter should look just like an 'a'.

(The 'd' looks a bit smaller than the 'a' here.It's still 5 nibwidths high.)

Same again, with a descender this time and a tail, for 'g':

And as you can imagine, it's if anything even simpler to draw a 'q' in italic lettering:

That takes care of quite a few letters.

Try to make sure that 'a', 'd', 'g' and 'q' in your italic lettering have the same basic body-shape as each other.

Also, you should notice that the curve of the first stroke in these letters also closely resembles that of 'c', 'e' and 'o'.

There are four letters left. I think of them as 'the pointy letters' but it is probably better to call them 'diagonal' letters as they are composed mostly of straight diagonal lines. Let's start with two that closely resemble each other:

Don't go overboard with the curve on the last stroke. It's pronounced but shouldn't be bulgy.

Also, make sure that you draw your downstrokes on 'v' and 'w' closer to the vertical than the thin upstrokes. By contrast, the upstrokes should be more angled across to the right. This again is about getting a slant onto all of your italic lettering.

Last two letters!

This form of 'x' is really quite gratifying to draw. It is elegantly easy to form but looks fabulous with its little 'ears'.

As with 'v' and 'w', make sure that the first, thick downstroke of 'x' is closer to the vertical, and the thin cross-stroke is more slanted at an angle. Otherwise, if both lines are at the same angle, the 'x' will look too upright compared with the other, slanted forms in your italic lettering.

By contrast with 'x', 'z' in italic is rather plain and surprisingly difficult to slant properly. Practise makes perfect ....

I think and hope we have now covered the alphabet.

ITALIC CALLIGRAPHY

Italic writing in general

This page offers you general practical information about how to write and recognise italic letters. You may also be interested in the more specificitalic lettering page for detailed guidance on how to form individual italic letters, practice exercises etc.

If you look at the above illustration, you will see that an italic calligraphy alphabet shows:

• a distinctive ‘lozenge’ shape to the body of letters a, b, d, g etc
• elegant, narrow branching strokes forming the shoulders of letters such as b, h, m, n, p etc
• quite long ascenders and descenders
• usually a slight slant to the right, about 5 degrees
• a cursive, running quality and an upwards ‘flick’ at the finish of many letters
• a contrast between heavier pressure on the downstrokes and much lighter pressure on the upstrokes
• some characteristic letter forms: for example, a and g are plain and open; ascenders often have a slight flourish

You will also find when you look around that ‘italic calligraphy’ can in fact refer to many, rather differing calligraphy alphabets. ‘Italic’ is the name of a family of scripts, not just one exact form.

But all italic alphabets will show four or more of the above characteristics, and especially the first four.

Usually, italic calligraphy is written about 5 nib-widths high. This means the height of an italic letter is a little greater in proportion to the nib-width than many other calligraphic letterforms. 

So you may wish to change to a narrower nib if you’ve previously been writing gothic, roundhand or uncial – or else, if you want to keep on with the same nib, rule a page of wider guidelines to write on.

Keep your pen angle at 45 degrees. This is important for forming the branching strokes.

You will also notice in the illustration of 'a' above, and on the more specific'italic lettering' page, that quite a few italic letter-forms involve pushing the pen nib to the left a little, or upwards from the baseline.

Some more basic principles for writing good italic calligraphy:

You can alter the appearance of your italic calligraphy simply by altering the amount of white space you leave between letters in a word, even if the letters are the same size:

Spacing is always important but in italic calligraphy especially so. The subtle, regular forms of italic letters are sensitive to irregular spacing and proportions.
Good spacing is not just about having the same amount of space between letters. If you draw each letter in an imaginary box of the same size, you will find that the words look uneven and distorted. Because italic calligraphy is a mixture of straight and curved lines, the rules for spacing have to do with the relationships between the curves and the straights:

As you can see, letter spacing controls the white space in betweenletters. Separately from that, the actual width of italic letters in relation to their height is another important consideration. This is about the shape and size of the 'counter' or white space inside any letterform:

Personally, I find that to write a pleasing italic alphabet requires more practice and warming-up exercises than gothic and roundhand. Possibly others would disagree and say that all scripts require a warm-up first. Practice exercises include writing rows of ms and ns ('arcades') and many 'a's and 'o's, trying to get them the same each time.

Your hand, arm, shoulder and eyes need to feel relaxed, focused and coordinated.
Try to build up a rhythm with the downstrokes. Concentrate on moving your whole hand while forming letters, not just your fingers.

When your hand has thoroughly learned the 'feel' of the letters, you can more confidently produce the easy-looking, fluid strokes which distinguish italic calligraphy from any other calligraphic style.

MORE GOTHIC WRITING; CAPITAL gothic letters A-Z

Useful info about gothic majuscules

There are many, many varieties of majuscules (capital letters) used in gothic writing. So keep your eyes open for more examples of capital gothic letters A-Z or even single letters (fonts, signs, titles, manuscript facsimiles etc). Build up a collection. Once you know the basics of how to write calligraphy, you can then imitate or adapt whatever you fancy for a particular project.

Generally, gothic capitals defy the oblong up-and-down aspect of their minuscule brethren. They occupy a square area, or even a widish rectangle, and are often very rounded. I believe this contrast came about for at least two reasons. Partly, it's because gothic capitals derive somewhat from uncial letters and later versals, which are extremely round. Partly it's because capital letters in long passages of gothic writing have always served as necessary navigational aids around the page, so the more contrast they have with the angular 'fenceposts' of the ordinary text, the better.

The latter fact should also tell you that gothic majuscules work very well in bright colour: traditionally, vermilion, blue or green. Important initials can have little gold boxes painted round them, as well as much other ornament. Gothic writing in general lends itself enthusiastically to majusculedecorated letters.

However, the big round shapes of the majuscules in gothic writing leave big white spaces inside (this space in any letter is called the 'counter'). And in gothic writing you must at all costs fill white space! So decorative lines, lozenges and little twiddle 

twaddles abound, both inside and out.

Gothic writing: majuscule gothic letters A-Z

This alphabet is written around six nib-widths high. Thin vertical lines are formed by turning the pen round to point directly to the left and then drawing downwards. Any other puzzling hairlines are created by twisting the pen to use just the left corner of the nib.

Here's an 'Xample':

(Remember: the rule for gothic writing is that you always draw the nib either from higher on the page to lower, or else from the left to the right; either way, the pen moves back or sideways from where the nib is pointing. If you push the pen nib-first, then the patron demon of bad writing, Titivillus, will come spluttering out and haunt your desk. He will dry your nib, grease your page, muddy your colours and joggle your hand).

'A', ironically, is the one letter in this alphabet which won't help you much to write any of the others. But it's simple enough. Actually, I think this 'A' is a bit sissy. 

'B' introduces a wonderful element of gothic writing which you'll use again and again: the hackle. This is the 'hook' decorating the first long downstroke of the letter (fifth stroke in the sequence). It can be angular or curved; 

To tackle a hackle on gothic letters: as you can see, the idea is to place your nib at its usual 45-degree angle so that the right corner of the nib is just barely touching the back of the letter. From there, draw the nib across and down in a steady curl until the left corner of the nib also meets the downstroke of the letter. (Meanwhile, make sure you have kept the angle constant so that the right corner of the nib doesn't intrude over the other side of the downstroke and leave an unsightly bulge or point.)

 The basic pattern shown here is about C: start just below the top line; draw a smooth round 'crescent moon' from top left to bottom right – that is, thin stroke through thick stroke to thin again; go back up to the top line, just to the right of the top point of the crescent, nib at 45 degrees, and draw a vertical (add a small angle at the bottom if you like); back up, and turn the nib sideways to draw a thin line neighbouring; lastly, go to just below the top again to add the rest of the letter.
If you can do that, then you're also ready for 'E', 'G', 'O', 'Q', 'T', 'U', 'V' and 'W'. Whoo-hoo!

The version of 'D' shown here is a rather splendid letter: start as for B, and then just have fun with that long ski-slope sweep of a stroke. Try not to exaggerate the curves too much. It's interesting to see from this element of gothic writing how the majuscule 'D' and the minuscule 'd' are essentially the same letter, just differing in which is the straight stroke and which is the curved.

'E' ... very much the same as 'C'. Keep the final 'tongue' fairly short. It's easy to get carried away.  Another twisty nib-trick: keeping the nib at 45 degrees, draw the horizontal and, while still drawing, lift the right corner of the nib off the page for the last millimetre. The right corner of the nib will leave its usual oblique line-end; the left corner of the nib, continuing, will obediently draw out the wet ink at the bottom of the stroke to form another perfectly matching point: 

'F' is also quite a grand letter, because its doubled black lines enclose a white stripe to create a dramatic contrast. Keep the lines smooth and slightly curved, avoiding the sharp angles of minuscule gothic writing, for a more flowing 'dazzle' effect.

'G' ... ain't this easy-peasy. Not even the forked tongue of the 'E' to worry about.

'H' is fairly self-explanatory. The new element is that flourished head. (Yes, it has one of those forkward awks on it, like the 'E'.)

Tip: When you draw the first downstroke, make sure you start by moving the nib slightly to the left for a tiny, initial leftwards curve into the vertical. Then you can go back to that point and draw up from it and to the right for another slight curve into the horizontal. The smooth, narrow join then introduces a more graceful forward-running flourish.

'I' is a nice, simple letter, but watch the proportions so that it doesn't end up looking too much like a 'J'. A handy rule of thumb is to make sure that the flourish at the head and the curl at the foot don't extend back further than a hackle's width plus about half again.

As you can see, a gothic 'J' is considerably more flourished than 'I'. Remember, this is quite a modern letter – in general use for only three hundred or so years. 'J' is therefore essentially an adaptation of 'I'; exaggerate the bowl and the top-stroke to distinguish it clearly.

'K' is formed quite similarly to 'H'. Its chief feature is its bold diagonal leg, which should thrust forward with both assurance and decorum – ie not so inconsiderately far that the next letter in the word will be pushed away along the line.

'L' is almost as simple as 'I'. Don't overdo the curves on the horizontal. Aha, here's an interesting tidbit. That symbol coming up below is of course the '£' sign; you can see how it started off as a majuscule 'L' in gothic writing.

That 'L' stood for the Latin word 'librae', meaning 'unit of weight'. 'Librae' was the word the English used to mean 'pounds' as in 'pounds, shillings and pence' (L, s and d – librae, solidi, denarii). And why was it called a 'pound' to begin with? Scholars suggest it was because a £ consisted of enough pennies to weigh 1lb on the scales. And then 'Libra' of course also means the Balance or Scales in astrology; and gives us the words 'equilibrium' (equal balance), to 'deliberate' and 'library' .

'M' is quite tall and graceful. Try not to make the shoulders too wide. Think of those high, narrow, arched windows in gothic cathedrals.

'N', you will be happy to know, is nothing more complex than a hatless 'H'.

The challenge with 'O' as in any calligraphy alphabet, gothic or otherwise, is to get the curves balanced so that the overall aspect is smoothly round rather than eggy or squished on one side.

'P', as you see, begins like a B but the stem goes below the line so you get a nice large brash bowl.

'Q', like 'D', is an opportunity for a bit of a flourish – this time, below the line.

'R' should be easy: it's more or less the top half of a 'B' stitched onto the bottom half of a 'K'. Make sure it has a rather larger bow at the top than a 'B', though. And the same warning applies about the leg as for 'K'.

'S'. Hm. In gothic writing, majuscule 'S' comes in so many varieties. But, for the moment, this version resembles 'F' in consisting for the most part of two parallel, slightly curving lines. Be sure to begin and end the diagonal middle section below the top-line and above the base-line, so that you have space for a graceful transition into the head and foot of the letter. The final diagonals should be positioned so that if either were extended in a straight line it would meet the other.

'T', by way of relief after 'S', is the simplest round letter of all these gothic letters A-Z. Keep the horizontal smooth, and balance its width against the curve of the body; don't let it go too far in either direction, and not too curly either.

'U', too, can draw 'U', too. (Ho, ho, ho.) Seriously: it's almost the same as the 'C's and 'G's earlier. The main difference is the little left-pointing flourish; and even that is rather like the beginning of a 'T'.

'V' is extremely similar to the other round letters, but it is useful to make the first 'crescent moon' shape a little narrower and more egg-shaped than in 'U' and its fellows, so as to help your reader to decide more readily which letter it is.

'W' is a walloping great humdinger of a letter. But for all that, it is indeed nothing worse than a 'double U': it's another modern letter in gothic writing, devised by us Germanic types because we'd turned a perfectly good 'V' (pronounced 'W' by the Romans) into its modern vuvvly sound, while we wanted 'U' to remain a wowel and nothing more.
 The only possible sticky patch is deciding how to position the second 'crescent moon'. Start it from just below the top-line as usual and straight above the place where the first crescent ends. You want the curve of the second crescent to just brush across the tip of the first in passing. Then, when you draw the thick verticals, angle the second one in so that it looks as though it's joining up with the end of the first crescent. 

'X' is curiously spidery, very much a large version of the minuscule letter already familiar to you from earlier gothic writing experiments. It is not always easy to get all four legs balanced. Keep an eye on what you have already drawn so you can see when and where to stop.

'Y' is a funny one. You'd think after 'V' and 'U' that 'Y' would be formed similarly, but the tail doesn't work well on the round shapes. It is different from the other letters in this gothic alphabet in starting with quite long 'ears'. The second of these 'ears' should start not too far away from the first – you can see in the example that all that separates them is the distance between the thin vertical and the first downstroke. The tail is of course drawn with the corner of the nib..

And here we are finally at the 'Z' of these majuscule gothic letters A-Z! Your gothic writing will never be the same again – in a good way, of course. It's hard to make 'Z' very exciting. As with 'L' and 'T', don't get carried away by the curves on those horizontals. Gently does it.