Calligraphy and Lettering Guidelines

Many people struggle with understanding the basics of calligraphy and hand lettering when first starting out, I know I did! You may have a good idea of what you are trying to achieve but it doesn’t look quite right when it’s on paper and that is often because the angles are not optically correct when transferring the idea onto the page. It’s tough to get right!

So I I created a versatile set of guidelines to help myself practice and make the whole learning process much easier. So, I thought I would share them with all of you.

The download is in pdf format so you can print as many as you could possibly need. You can also import them straight into apps like Procreate on the iPad which works wonders with the Apple Pencil. You can also import it into any program your heart desires.

iPads are great to practice on as you can option undo each stroke until you get it right. Having said that, nothing beats physical paper and coming back to the routs of hand lettering and calligraphy.

Recommended work scale and print scale 1:1 (actual size which is A4).

What’s included;

6mm grid, perfect for calligraphy and copperplate (portrait and landscape) 1cm grid, perfect for brush lettering and thicker nib pens (portrait and landscape) 15mm grid, perfect for larger hand lettering creations (portrait and landscape) a version with a mixture of all of the above, perfect for using under tracing paper as you can move it around to suite you and reuse it multiple times (portrait) File format: .pdf // 7 pages

I hope this guideline bundle helps you and I look forward to seeing what you create!

Tag me on instagram your practice so I can see how your getting along, @hughvdl

Enjoy!