Calligraphy has transcended times and cemented itself as a lasting and meaningful cultural part of mankind all over the globe for centuries. This handwriting art has achieved longevity โ from ancient manuscripts to recent social media posts โ and continues to adapt to contemporary trends to what we call modern calligraphy font.
By definition, calligraphy fonts are typefaces having the feel of a script or a handwriting style. Using a deliberate and artful style with consistent letterforms, modern calligraphic typefaces try to generate the illusion of decorative calligraphy, usually with the help of OpenType features like swashes or contextual alternates.
This article will explore deeper between traditional and modern calligraphy fonts, frequent applications of these typefaces, and some applicable font collections to try.
Modern calligraphy font is more likely to be more experimental (artistic and expressive personal work) compared to the traditional approach that seeks to create writing to resemble styles or scripts used in historical documents.
It is not surprising that the traditional calligraphy style essentially needs to follow strict rules, as opposed to the modern style, which grasps breakthrough creativity. By and large, the traditional calligraphy style tends to show a refined and elegant look, while the modern one embraces a flair or casual and playful charms.
In more technical detail, the traditional style follows uniform angles and lines, as well as equal spacing. In contrast, modern calligraphic style swings more to letter proportions to better suit the designer’s style.
Once again, the use of traditional or modern style will highly depend on the artist or designerโs personal style, taste, and preference.
Owing to its versatility, many people use modern calligraphy font in numerous designing areas, ranging from commercial to personal projects (like crafting, journaling, scrapbooking, etc.). Other applications are invitations, branding, home dรฉcor, advertising, fashion, accessories, and stationeries.
The question is, what should you consider before using them in your creative works? Letโs see some essential factors.
The occasion โ For example, are you designing for weddings or children’s birthday invitations? They will be different.
The message โ Are you conveying a formal or a more relaxed message, for instance?
The readability โ What is the most appropriate font size? Where will you display your design (e.g., printed or phone screen)?
The audience โ Who is your specific target audience?
The fitting reference โ You can look for previous typefaces created by specific designers to complement your design.
What is more? Mostly used for short headers, titles, or accents, many avoid using calligraphic font style for longer text strings since they will naturally become hard to read.
You’ve already learned about what modern calligraphy fonts are and how to creatively apply them. Now, let’s peek at a few fancy collections to put them into your creative works.
Numberlin Ordinary is a modern calligraphic script font designed in intricately fine-looking strokes. Radiating elegance and high quality, this font is highly suitable for various design purposes, such as invitations, feminine or beauty, weddings, salons, fashion, quotes, photography, and more.
If you are looking for a font that gives an instant sense of luxury and timeless classiness but with modern sophistication, the Times Series is a perfect choice. It is a combo of an elegant serif typeface and a calligraphy font crafted with a unique ligature style.
Qalasenja took its inspiration from the renowned Islamic calligraphy. This font reflects the elaborate essence of Islamic artistry โ elegant details and fine curves โ to create a perfect blend of tradition that meets modernity. Highly suitable for religious-themed designs, this typeface is also ideal for other festive decoration ideas.
You will find this font under some categories like a calligraphy font, a display font, a modern font, a ligature font, a wedding font, and more. One Step More is a modern and calligraphy font that has a distinct combination of timeless serif font and lively italic san serif fonts.
Moving Battyna Duo Font is another uniquely amazing marriage of beautiful serif and handwritten script typeface. The result is indeed a classy and modern calligraphy font with a highly readable style.
As the name implies, Watanabe reflects the elaborate Japanese calligraphy font and cultural artistry. The elegant strokes show the authentic essence of Japanese culture, cuisine, landscapes, and more. Accordingly, you can apply it to design menus, digital content, posters, and more.
Meiya is a modern serif typeface with a beautiful and unique ligature style. It offers an immediate flair of a classy, modern calligraphy font from the very first start. If you want to add a lovely, modern, and nostalgic touch to your design all at once, Meiya can be a perfect candidate.
Another great combo of classy and modern style, Glamer is a marriage between serif and san serif fonts. The unique ligature generates an attractive calligraphic flair while still maintaining its high-level readability.
Lassona Martinez is a modern calligraphy font that offers beautiful glyphs and light handwritten swashes. This typeface can evoke a luxury spark in any creative design project.
A modern calligraphic script font, Angella has an attractively lovely and girly design. This font brings about an elegant, feminine flair that is highly suitable for specific design purposes, such as beauty, fashion, cosmetics, weddings, salons, invitations, and the like.
The above selections have shown that some maintain the traditional calligraphy typefaces, while others combine them with a more modern style. Rather than adhering to rigid rules, the focus has shifted to discovering joy in experimenting with the aesthetic flair of the scripts and breaking new boundaries.ย
Boasting a long-standing history, traditional calligraphy typefaces have borne the test of time for centuries. On the other hand, modern calligraphy font style has emerged in recent years to keep pace with the keen popularity of digital media, not to mention the evolving trends. This typeface brings up the elaborate art of pen-writing images to design more creatively.