Arabic Calligraphy vs Calligram
アラビア書道 / カリグラム
Arabic Calligraphy comes from Calligraphic Traditions and Calligram from Lettering. One is style and the other technique. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Arabic Calligraphy
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A tradition that holds writing to be the highest of the arts. From Kufic to Thuluth it has gone on refining an architecture of line, in the tension between canon and individual hand.
Calligram
Arranges words into the shape of what they say, so that reading and seeing happen in the same moment.
| Arabic Calligraphy | Calligram | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 7th century– | antiquity–modernism |
| Family | Calligraphic Traditions | Lettering |
| Kind | Style | Technique |
| Cues | Architectural letterforms / Canonical scripts / Breathing thick-and-thin / Composition united with ornament | Text drawing a contour / Shifting reading direction / Meaningful blank space / Poem fused with figure |
| Best used for | Arabic titling and logotypes that must respect the canonical scripts · Architectural and craft ornament where the writing is the structure | Making a short poem or title physically felt · A symbolic image from letters alone |
| Type | Choose one script and follow its proportions for joining and stacking | One face or one hand, keeping the words continuous |
| Composition | Work right to left, shape the mass through overlap and empty ground | Convert the sentence into contour, path and density; mark where reading begins |
| Material | Thick and thin from the reed angle, gold and blue kept to ornament | Letter and paper as two colors; the shape itself is the star |
| Caution | Setting Arabic letter by letter as if it were Latin breaks the joins, and the word stops being readable long before it stops being beautiful. | Don't fix a silhouette first and stuff words in. Let the text's rhythm generate the form. |