Creating a ‘Font’ for the Book

So I have a confession to make… I have terrible handwriting. I honestly do not know how I passed my handwriting classes in elementary school. My regular handwriting is sloppy, barely legible, and looks like something a 5 year-old scribbled down. I knew going into this project that I was not going to be able to simply ‘write’ out the Bible in my regular writing style.

I also have no experience with calligraphy. I have never made an earnest attempt to learn how to write in that style and, in the interest of time, I am not going to attempt to master that skill before beginning the Bible Project. This is going to take a long time to complete as is, and I didn’t wish to complicate it further.

In order to make the Bible legible, I needed to find a way to turn my chicken-scratch handwriting into something entirely different, something more like the print found in modern books. I got the idea to create a ‘font’ that I could use to keep my writing uniform. I scrutinized images from various manuscripts, some from the medieval period and some that were older and even written in Greek, and slowly created letter samples that I believed I could reproduce with reliability. I needed a style of script that was able to be easily read, looked similar to ancient texts, and that I would be able to write down quickly without laboring over each letter.

      Sample of Medieval Texts

After much trial and error, I settled on a style for each letter, creating separate upper case and lower case designs. I also followed the same pattern when creating a writing style for numbers. The end result is pictured below. I also included a ‘how-to guide’ showing the best step-by-step way to create each letter.

Practice Page Using the Font

Font Sample with How-to Guide

I’ve practiced with this ‘font’ and I’ve found I’m able to copy text relatively quickly while still showing some uniformity in the letters to keep the text legible. Is it perfect? Hardly. Do I think it will work? Absolutely. Now that I have a script style, we’re one step closer to turning this Bible Project from an idea into a reality.