Calligraphy means"beautiful writing." Calligraphy is the art of writing script in such a way as to express the beauty of what is being written in the formation of the letters themselves. Calligraphy can be both a delight to the eye and an inspiration to the spirit. Calligraphy is an art form in which patience and attention to detail are more important than artistic talent. In our technological age, the appreciation for the art of calligraphy has grown incredibly. Calligraphy is a fun hobby, a great business, and a creative art. Calligraphy is a whole lot of fun and can be enjoyed by young and old alike.

Calligraphy claims ancient roots in the first recorded forms of expression: the cave paintings of our ancestors some 25,000-30,000 years ago. Eventually this form of pictorial communication became stylized around 3500 B.C. with the development of Egyptian hieroglyphics. The Phoenicians followed circa 1000 B.C. with one of the earliest alphabets -- an entirely different writing system in that each symbol represented a sound rather than an idea or picture. The Phoenician alphabet was adopted and modified by many peoples, including the Greeks. The Romans picked up the Greek alphabet and adapted it to suit Latin.

Before the invention of the printing press some 500 years ago, it was the way books were made, each copy being written out by hand by a scribe in a scriptorium on materials like vellum or parchment with a quill in one of the period bookhands like rustic, carolingian, blackletter, etc.