This is a workshop on Roman capitals, the most enduring of all the calligraphic hands. Roman capitals have informed calligraphers and typedesigners for two millennia, and continue to be central to the calligrapher’s palette. Since approx. 100 BC they have survived in stone as inscribed letters, but as Edward M. Catich has shown in his book The Origin of the Serif , they were written with a broad edged writing tool, and their shape has come about through the meeting of geometry and movement.

We will explore Roman Capitals and their proportion and weighting through a series of exercises and explorations, from pure skeleton shapes, through writing them with a broad-edged pen and eventually making serifs and looking at ways to create variations.

Depending on the level of the participant, advanced techniques like pen manipulation, variation of pressure, and retouching/building up with the corner of the pen will be introduced. A certain level of familiarity with the broad-edged pen and the basic calligraphic hands is an advantage, but not a pre-requisite.

Through lectures, demonstrations and individual criticism the participants are invited to gain skill and knowledge in writing this ancient, but enduring letterform, and to blow life into its strokes and details.