A small calligraphy glossary
Calligraphy has its own vocabulary — script names, nib shapes, parts of a letter, ways of finishing a page. This glossary collects the words we use most often when discussing a commission, in plain language. If a term you have read elsewhere is missing here, write to us and we will add it.
For investment levels see the contact page; for the full list of what we make, see services and catalogue.
Indian scripts we work in
Devanagari — The script used to write Hindi, Sanskrit, Marathi, Nepali and a handful of other Indian languages. Identified by the horizontal headline (shirorekha) that ties most letters together along the top.
Nastaliq — The hanging, right-leaning script that carries Urdu and most Persian poetry. Strokes thin upward to the right and thicken on the descent; spacing across the line matters as much as each letter.
Gurmukhi — The script of Punjabi, set down in its current form by Guru Angad. Built on a strong vertical rhythm and a short, even headline.
Bangla (Bengali) — Shares family resemblance with Devanagari through the headline, but the letterforms are rounder and the verticals lean. Used for Bengali, Assamese and several smaller languages of the east.
Modi — A cursive Marathi script used for administration and correspondence into the early twentieth century. Less common today, but beautiful on personal commissions where the receiver has a Maharashtrian lineage.
Brahmi — The ancient parent of most Indian and South-east Asian scripts, surviving on Ashokan edicts and old coins. We sometimes letter a single Brahmi monogram into a piece as a quiet historical signature.
Sharada — A medieval Kashmiri script, slender and upright. Rarely commissioned, but a meaningful choice for a piece tied to that region.
Western hands we draw on
Uncial — A round, generous hand from the fourth to eighth centuries, used in early Christian manuscripts. Sits in a single height and reads warm rather than stately.
Carolingian minuscule — The clear, even script that became the standard across Europe under Charlemagne, and the ancestor of most modern lower-case letters.
Blackletter — A family of dense, angular hands from medieval Europe. Textura stands tightest and most formal; Rotunda rounds the bones; Fraktur is the variant most people recognise from old German printing.
Foundational hand — Edward Johnston’s twentieth-century revival of Carolingian forms; the script most calligraphers learn first. Even, legible, kind to a broad-edge nib.
Italic — A slanted hand born in Renaissance Italy and used to this day for invitations and certificate work. Made with a broad-edge nib, not to be confused with the italic style of printed type.
Copperplate — A pointed-pen script from English engraving traditions; thin upstrokes, swelled downstrokes, formal address. The hand most often asked for on wedding envelopes.
Spencerian — A faster, more open American cousin of Copperplate, with lighter shading and a steeper slant. Quietly elegant; ideal for long inscriptions.
Roundhand — The eighteenth-century English business script that sits behind both Copperplate and Spencerian; broader than its descendants and easier to read at length.
Tools at the desk
Broad-edge nib — A flat-tipped pen, held at a constant angle, that draws contrast from the shape of the stroke itself. Used for Italic, Foundational, Uncial and most historical European hands.
Pointed nib — A flexible, sharp nib that responds to pressure; light upstrokes, heavy downstrokes. The tool behind Copperplate and Spencerian.
Qalam (reed pen) — A reed cut and carved by hand into a broad nib; the traditional tool for Nastaliq and Arabic calligraphy. Each qalam is dressed to a single calligrapher’s hand.
Brush — In Indian and East Asian traditions, the brush carries weight that a metal nib cannot. We use brushes for fabric work, large display lettering and walls.
Ink stick — Compressed pigment, traditionally lamp-black bound with animal glue, ground against a stone with a little water. Yields ink as deep as the time you spend grinding it.
Gouache — Opaque water-colour. Sits on the page rather than soaking into it, which is why it is the right paint for illumination and for coloured calligraphy that needs to stay crisp.
Sumi — Japanese black ink, prized for its quietness on the page and its slow drying time, which lets brushwork breathe.
Gum arabic — A natural binder added to ink and gouache to control flow and adhesion. A few drops change how a stroke behaves under a pointed nib.
Vellum — A surface made from calf-skin, prepared and stretched, used historically for the most lasting manuscripts. Holds gold leaf and pigment with rare clarity.
Parchment — A similar animal-skin support, often from sheep or goat. We use modern paper-parchment substitutes for most commissions; true vellum is reserved for a few pieces.
Cotton-rag paper — Acid-free, archival paper made from cotton fibres rather than wood pulp. Holds ink longer and resists yellowing — the working paper of the studio.
Gold leaf — Hammered sheets of gold thin enough that you can read through them. Applied with size (an adhesive base), then burnished. The brightness on a Hanuman Chalisa page is leaf, not paint.
Anatomy of a letter
Baseline — The invisible line that most letters sit on. The first ruling drawn on any page of work.
x-height — The height of a lower-case letter without ascenders or descenders — measured against the small letter x. Sets the visual weight of a passage.
Cap height — The height of an upper-case letter. Usually taller than the x-height; rarely as tall as ascenders.
Ascender — The part of a letter that rises above the x-height — the upright of b, d, h, k.
Descender — The part that drops below the baseline — the tail of g, j, p, q, y.
Counter — The enclosed white space inside a letter, like the bowl of an o or the loop of a p. As much a part of the design as the stroke.
Serif — The small terminal at the end of a stroke — the foot of a Roman capital, the entry stroke of an Italic lower-case. A hand can be serifed or sans-serif.
Stroke contrast — The difference between the thickest and thinnest part of a letter. Copperplate has high contrast; Foundational has almost none.
Ductus — The sequence and direction in which the strokes of a letter are made. The same shape, written in a different ductus, behaves differently on the page.
Ligature — Two letters joined into a single stroke pattern — fi, ct, certain Devanagari conjunct consonants. Ligatures are where a hand shows its years.
Flourish — An ornamental extension of a stroke, beyond what the letter strictly needs. Used sparingly on formal work; more freely on personal pieces.
Techniques and finishes
Illumination — The painted, gilded and ornamental work that surrounds calligraphy on the page. Historically, it told the reader where a chapter began; today, it can be a single rose at the end of a verse.
Gilding — The application of gold (or, occasionally, silver) leaf to a prepared surface. Done before the ink, never after — burnished gold smudges fresh writing.
Embossing and debossing — Raised (embossed) or pressed-in (debossed) lettering on paper or leather. We use this on certificates, leather goods and select stationery, alongside ink work.
Underpainting — A first layer of pale colour laid down before the calligraphy, which lifts the ink and gives depth — common on canvas commissions.
Live calligraphy — Lettering done in front of guests at an event — names on bottles, lines on a fan, addresses on envelopes — finished and handed over in minutes. A different discipline from studio work; the rules of breath, ink and audience all change.
Ruling and pricking — Preparing the page before any letter is written: pencil-light baselines, ascender lines, descender lines, sometimes a margin pricked in with a needle. The grid that the writing then dissolves.
Resist — A wax or masking medium painted onto the page first, so that subsequent washes flow around it. Used for layered calligraphy on water-colour pieces.
Want a piece in one of these hands?
Most commissions begin with a short brief — a sentence on what is being commemorated, the surface, the script and the date. WhatsApp +91 98111 77262 or send a brief and we will come back with a costed plan.
To see how some of these scripts and finishes appear in finished work, look through the portfolio or read about the Hanuman Chalisa edition — a long-form project that draws on Devanagari, gold leaf, illumination and ruling all at once.