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Back Calligraphy Calligraphy Discourse The Beauty Of Typography: Writing Systems And Calligraphy Of The World - Summary

The Beauty Of Typography: Writing Systems And Calligraphy Of The World - Summary

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The Beauty Of Typography: Writing Systems And Calligraphy Of The World
Chinese Characters
Japanese
Korean Squares
Vietnamese Rotation
Arabic
Bi-Directionnality
Sini
Indic Scripts (Brahmic)
Thai Stacking Diactritics
Tibetan Mantras
Summary
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Summary

So what should you take away from this article? We have seen that Arabic and Chinese calligraphy have many different scripts variations. From geometric to cursive to regular script, there is no such thing as one calligraphic style for a language.

Sometimes there is even no such thing as one script per language. This is why Japanese is interesting: it is written in three different scripts that mix nicely. The construction of the Korean language is also fascinating: characters are grouped into squares that create syllables. Writing systems are ultimately diverse in construction, which makes them so interesting.

Many languages also have various components that can be used in our typography. Arabic and Thai, among many others, have a large system of diacritics. Arabic has a decorative aspect. Ligatures are directly related to our Latin alphabet but can be quite elaborated in such scripts as Devanagari.

You could do a lot to spice up your own designs. Did you catch the red Chinese seal, which contrasts with the usual black ink. Have you thought of rotating your fonts to give them a whole new look, as Vietnamese calligraphers do? What about the Arabic teardrop-shaped writing? If you missed all of this, you have no choice but to scroll back up and take a closer look.



Last Updated on Saturday, 14 August 2010 17:24