Italic Calligraphy and Handwriting: Exercises and Text

Rating:
Summary: The writing-book that's bigger inside than outside.
Review: This book distills the life-work and teaching of one of the most influential calligraphers and better-handwriting crusaders of of our century into a manual small enough to enter a jacket pocket without bulging. Brief text -- with a wealth of hand-calligraphed illustrations -- takes the budding pen-person from the basics of the ABC on to easy (yet elegant) handwriting, fun projects, and even the essentials of professional book-design. The work surpasses many others in the care taken with its letter-forms; also in the instructions for practice, which are clear and "do-able" without being over-simplified. Buyers of this book might like to know that information on a companion video-tape series (taken from a TV course, based on the book, which aired during the author's lifetime) is available from Oregon Public Broadcasting (www.opb.org) -- I hope that AMAZON will soon carry this as well! The only ways in which this book falls short of perfection: /1/ some of the additional resources the text and bibliography mention are no longer available from the sources he gives, and /2/ there is perhaps not enough attention given to solving a few of the calligraphy-pen "snags" that cause problems for many beginners.