Origins of the Foundational Hand 

The Foundational hand was devised by Edward Johnston who lived from 1872 – 1944. He devised the script after his studies of medieval manuscripts in the British Library after he was commissioned to write a manuscript by the Principal of the Central School of Art, William Lethaby. Foundational hand is also known as Round Hand.

The hand is based on a 10th-century English Carolingian manuscript and is the hand that is one of the first that a calligrapher will learn. It is the first of the modern scripts

Writing Foundational Script

The Foundational hand is based on the circle made by two overlapping strokes of the calligraphy pen. This cursive hand is written with a constant pen angle and few pen lifts. The characteristic thick and thin strokes of the letterforms are the result of the constant angle at which the calligraphy pen is held.

Almost all the letters of this hand relate to the circle and arches, so when you prepare to write the letters, practise by drawing controlled crescent moon shapes, beginning and ending on a thin point. Once you have mastered the circular shapes, the semicircles can be attached to upright stems to create rounded letterforms or they can be extended into a downstroke to form arches. Rounded serifs are used on entry and exit of strokes.

Foundational hand is a formal, upright script where each letter is made up of two or more strokes making it a script that has more lifts than a cursive script. The pen is held at an angle of 30 degrees which will control the distribution of the weight, creating the thin and thick strokes. This constant pen angle is necessary so that good, rounded letterforms and strong arches are produced. The only exception to the 30 degree rule is when forming letters in the diagonals group when the pen is to be held at an angle of 45 degrees to prevent the stroke from being too thick.

The letters should be evenly spaced, the letter height is four times the width of the pen nib - you can check this by turning your calligraphy pen sideways to make squares with the nib and then rule the lines based on this measurement.

The Foundational Alphabet Letterforms