"The word is more important than the letter; the sentence is more important than the word and the page is more important than the sentence." I forget the wise person who said that, but I believe that it's absolutely true with handwriting and lettering in general.

We instictively seem to like symmetry and the most important first factor when assessing a page of handwriting , is consistency of slope (or the lack of it, in the case of upright writing). Even indifferent writing will look much more attractive if the slope is even and regular. If you feel that you may have this problem, try the following -

Write 2 or 3 pages in your normal hand at normal speed. View them at a distance which takes in the whole page and assess the most common slope for your handwriting. This becomes the slope at which you should always practice this hand.
Having established the angle, carefully draw up a page in black ink (a fibre tip is perfect for this) of horizontal and angled lines at your slope. Space the angled lines no more than 20mm apart. I use a clip board with the base sheet fixed permanently in position. For practice, 80gsm copier paper is ideal as it has sufficient see-through. A few sessions of writing with slope awareness like this, can produce remarkable results.

All the other important factors can then be addressed - letter structure, spacing etc. Even if these factors are OK, handwriting will never look good if the slope is all over the place. If a consistent slope is used from the beginning, everything else will fall into place, with practice. Idiosyncracy in handwriting style comes later, when sufficient control over the basics has been achieved, and I believe that starting with slope consistency is the most important first step.

Hi Caliken,
Thats a great line. I learned it like this:

The Page
is more important than the line
is more important than the word
is more important than the letter.

Your calligraphy is beautiful, by the way. As is your handwriting.

Best regards,
James

James -

I'm sure that your version is correct! They both mean the same, but yours is neater.
It's years since I thought of it and I wrote it out from memory - always a risky thing to do!
Thanks for the compliment and the interest.

caliken

Caliken,

Thanks for the great advice! I use to do this to practice my handwriting, only difference is that I printed out the "pre-made" guides.

Immoteus

Immoteus -

This is fine, as long as the "pre-made" guides conform to your personal slope in handwriting (?)

For example. If I write italic at 5 degrees I'm fine as long as I can maintain concentration. If I'm distracted, I find my writing drifting towards a 12 degrees slope which, I have discovered, is my natural angle for italic handwriting. I believe that, if you can establish your natural angle first, you'll save yourself a lot of unnecessary hassle, later on.

I also produce and print out my personal guide sheets for practice, in very,very light green or blue to minimize any excessive distraction from the lettering. I write directly on these sheets and am only just aware of these faint lines as a guide. Whichever method you use, it's useful to keep your practice sheets as encouragement, as you make progress.

Thanks for your interest.

Thanks much for your advice, caliken! Here's a link to Ann Finley's "Slant Detection Guide Sheet," which when printed out helps determine your actual writing slant. Just posting thinking it might be useful to some. Making a quick check of my own writing, it seems I'm between 12 - 15 degrees depending on how fast I'm writing.

I've also just emailed Kevin of Incompetech.com. This page on his site generates a variety of variously ruled, customizable sheets. I use his Cornell ruling generator for my own notes. My suggestion was that he program a page that could print out a sheet with user defined line spacing and angle, which like his other sheets would also feature user defined line weights and colors. I'll post if he responds.

Again, thanks!

Doug

Thanks for the links, Doug. They are both very interesting, very useful and relevant to this thread.
Your interest is, as ever, much appreciated

caliken