Inkspired

A joyful exploration of modern calligraphy, with exercises and ideas to help you get creative with ink.

Modern calligraphy has taken social media by storm and inspired thousands of people to put pen to paper and get involved with ink. For years, handwriting has been in danger of becoming lost to keyboards and smartphones, with few of us picking up a pen to do much more than scrawl a shopping list or take hasty notes in meetings so, for professional calligrapher Betty Soldi, this increase in interest is welcome.

In Inkspired, Betty encourages you to reconnect with handwriting and discover the calming, creative joy of calligraphy. The book contains guidelines and practice pages, and its calligraphy-friendly paper and unique lie-flat binding mean you can write straight into the book with ease. Once you have had a go at her own Alphabetty’ of calligraphic letters, you are encouraged to develop your own individual style, with a section of projects, from invitations to writing on crockery.

Learn to embrace mistakes, play around with new ideas - Betty encourages practicing not just with pen and paper, but writing on mirrors in lipstick or etching messages into a plant leaf - and express yourself with beautiful lettering and flourishes. Betty’s mantra is Practice makes progress’, and with her infectious enthusiasm and invaluable guidance, even the most inexperienced of inkers will find their scribbles transformed.

Betty comes from a Florentine family famous for making fireworks. Now, she likes to say, she makes fireworks with ink. She has been a calligrapher and graphic designer for many years and, after living in London, New York and Paris, she is now based back in Florence, where she has a design studio and runs two boutique hotels. She has worked with luxury and international brands including Fortnum & Mason, Waitrose and Hermes.