Now working as a graphic designer, she treats calligraphy as her side job. A member of the Society for Calligraphy in Southern California, Yoshida has studied with masters calligraphers and has taken many classes and workshops to improve her skills.

“After attending various workshops and conferences, the best takeaway is that calligraphy is a life-long learning experience,” she writes on her website. “There are students who are already very skilled, yet still very humble and want to learn from the best. I find that extremely inspiring. I am a perpetual student and truly believe we should never stop learning to improve our craft. I have learned so much, but I have a lifetime’s worth of studying to go.”

“We need to be constantly learning and honing our skills in order for calligraphy to stay relevant, and to keep up with the changing times and client requests,” she added in an interview with The Pen Company. “I firmly believe that to be a good calligrapher, we need to study from the old masters.”

“Many practicing calligraphers are self-taught and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I knew early on that if I was to be serious about the art and craft of calligraphy, I had to learn it the right way, which is from professional calligraphers,” she went on to explain.

Take a look at some of her work on Instagram:

The post Practice Makes Perfect: Follow Linda Yoshida’s Calligraphy Journey appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Born in 1981 in Paris to Tunisian parents, eL Seed was disconnected from his Arabic roots, speaking only the Tunisian dialect of the language at home. In his teenage years in a kind of quest to rediscover his identity, he began to delve into his own heritage and learned to read and write standard Arabic. It was during this journey that he began to develop his artistic style of calligraphy, which would later bring him worldwide acclaim.

“As a kid, I was into hip hop culture,” he recalled in an interview with Art Radar. “Graffiti was the natural medium for me to express myself in an artistic way. It became more and more a case of [me finding my] identity and reconnecting with my Arabic roots.”

According to eL Seed, Arabic calligraphy was a way for him to build a link between his equally important French and Tunisian backgrounds. “I mix graffiti, which is a ‘western’ medium (although I don’t like to use this term) and Arabic calligraphy, which is an ancient eastern way of expression,” he says. “Bringing both together is a way for me to bring together a picture that seems contradictory, but actually is not. I think that’s the power of calligraphy and art in general. [They] bring two worlds together and link them. That’s why I feel that my work speaks for me.”

Take a look at some of his inspiring work.

The post French Artist Mixes Graffiti and Arabic Calligraphy appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Over the past years, Lampas took part in group exhibitions and art projects held in Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Korea, and the UAE. In 2015, he performed the first world’s largest calligraffiti on the roof of a building in Moscow – an artwork that can be seen from a satellite and on Google Earth.

“For me, Calligraffiti is a great way to create art non-stop,” he shared with the Fendi blog. “Now I can easily take a big bucket of paint and perform my art everywhere. On walls, on glass, on cars!”

“The Calligrafuturism is my self-developed style,” he went on to explain. “We’re all living in a multi-cultural world and if I can help people to learn more about foreign calligraphy, they’ll learn more about other countries. So that’s why Calligrafuturism is so important for me, I don’t want to make something new just because I’m crazy, I want to create it because I can see a very big knowledge and that’s why I’m doing it.”

He admits that he’s always hunting for the next best surface to work on. “Of course, I prefer something smooth, but it depends on the material and the tools,” he says. “So, if I could find something very nice to work on outside this earth, it would probably be the moon. That would be my favorite surface!”

Take a look at some of his out-of-this-world murals:

The post Pokras Lampas Mixes Together Calligraphy and Graffiti appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I feel like lettering has added so much to my life and given me the balance it needed through some busy and tough times,” she gushed in an interview with Surely Simple. “It is amazing how adding just a few hours of a hobby for yourself can make you a better, all-around more effective person. I feel like I am currently the best wife, mom, and teacher I have ever been and I think much of that is allowing myself to take part in an activity that uses my creativity, relaxes me, and brings me constant joy and inspiration.”

Her first and most important tip to starting calligraphers? To have fun! “It is so important to have fun and find your own style through the process of practicing modern calligraphy,” she told Surely Simple. “My biggest tip is to find your own style through lettering. This takes tons of practice but will make your lettering unique and will make it so much more fun!”

Aside from using a pointed pen, she also works with gouache, Tombow brush pens, and watercolor brushes to write her calligraphy. “My favorite way to explore new styles is to pick up a pencil or brush pen and just start writing,” she says. “Yes, there are tons of inspiring people on Instagram and it’s ok to find things that you like in others’ work, but the best way to find your own style is to put down the phone, get out the pens, and just practice until you find what you love.”

Take note!

The post Improve Your Lettering Skills with This Lefty Calligrapher appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Kovalenko’s style replicates ink-splattering calligraphy but, instead of random ink stains, she uses carefully placed stitches. The artist told This is Colossal that “the main idea in this project was to connect two arts—the fast (expressive calligraphy) and the slow one (hand embroidery). It makes you think about the deceitfulness of time.”

Kovalenko studied type design in Moscow and continued to work on her calligraphy skills with Evgeniy Dobrovinsky. You can follow her work on Instagram where she shares updates with a growing number of followers.

The post Olga Kovalenko Creates Beautiful Embroidered Calligraphy appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Born and raised in Hokkaido, Japan, Yamaguchi has been trained to master the basics of calligraphy by learning under the Master Zuiho Sato since at the age of 6, while refining her knowledge and skills. “I grew up in small towns in the countryside of Hokkaido, surrounded by beautiful nature,” she recalled in an interview with The Design Kids. “I started to read and write around age 3. I loved drawing, writing stories, crafts, anything to do with paper, paints, pencils and pens, glue, playing piano, using my hands. I loved exploring the woods, hiking in the mountains, walking into the river, playing with snow.”

While exploring, she’d come up with stories, and write them down in notebooks at home. “Around 5-6 years old, I made a series of picture books with my illustrations and my little fantasy stories; about this bear exploring the forest, flying on the cloud, traveling around the world,” she said. “I remember bringing the book I made to the calligraphy school and showing it to Master Sato. My childhood dream was to become a novel writer.”

Her current works show her exploration in juxtaposing the traditional Eastern classics and her contemporary artistic expressions, as well as her unique ambition of transforming two-dimensional art of Japanese Calligraphy into the art of physical expression through performances.

Currently residing in Berkeley, California, Yamaguchi continues her work on her conceptual calligraphy installations, exhibitions, and performances as she continues to push the boundaries of traditional Eastern classics and contemporary artistic expression.

Prepare to be wowed.

The post Japanese Artist Pushes the Boundaries of Traditional Calligraphy appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I imagined the codes and information within ones’ brain, morphing and dancing around, and at the same time, a pool of ambiguous patterns, in another dimension, connecting to and transferring energy from the vibrations within the brain,” the artist shared on Design Boom. ‘…The brain receives the information in many different forms, and regulates them into familiar and understandable thought patterns.”

He has exhibited his work in multiple solo shows and group shows in the United Arab Emirates, Iran, and the United States. You can also find his work on Instagram, where he shares his creations under the name nasernia.art.

Scroll down to see his artwork and follow him on Instagram for more.

The post Artist Uses Persian Calligraphy to Create Remarkable Art Works appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Now he creates visual work including typography, lettering, and illustrations for clients around the world such as MTV, CNN, and HBO; while his Instagram page is equally trendy, with more than 132k followers.

“The hardest part of my job is finding a good quote or a word,” he admits. “I could spend hours looking for a good one. Since I have the phrase or word I start to make the sketches in different styles, after having chosen the best one I proceed to do it with a marker, brush or directly digital on a tablet. Finally, I place the lettering on a photo or image.”

“​I think the strokes are very important element in order to create a nice lettering piece, also the thickness and kerning are very important,” he says. “Sometimes I have the same mistakes, I usually see different works of great artists to have a better idea of how to do it and that’s how I improve my work!”

Strongly influenced by his background in graffiti, his calligraphy art is bold, vibrant, and full of movement. Take a look at some of our favorite works by him and follow his Instagram page for more.

The post Lettering Artist is Inspired by Graffiti appeared first on PlayJunkie.

With a knack for learning and being creative, Bugbee was drawn to calligraphy and design from a very young age, while growing up in Kansas. Now based in Boulder, Colorado, with her husband and baby boy, she says that her childhood in that rural Kansas was very quiet and uneventful, and so she needed to figure out a way to entertain herself.

“Eventually I discovered that making art was a great way to have fun,” she recalled. “My mother didn’t mind letting me draw or paint on certain walls, and we had a sand driveway that I could make line drawings in after it rained. My grandmother used to color and paint with me, and I remember watching her and thinking, ‘I wish I could keep inside the lines like that!'”

Working nowadays as a calligraphy teacher, she adds: “I think that pretty penmanship comes with being able to draw. If you can convincingly depict a 3D object onto a 2D object (e.g. draw a sunflower on a piece of paper), you can write. It just takes a steady hand and some practice! I don’t use traditional calligraphy styles, though; I like making up styles as I go. Often I create new styles depending on the client and what I think will be best for their event.”

Check out her wonderful work in the gallery below:

The post Lindsey Bugbee’s Calligraphy Art Will Delight You appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“Yazi Yolcusu, which apparently means ‘Text Traveler’ in Turkish, is living proof that it’s not the tools that make the artist, but their skill,” according to Oddity Central. “Using only metal cutlery – a spoon to hold the ink and forks and knives as writing tools – the talented artist creates some of the most amazing calligraphy you’ll ever see.”

The Bursa-based Yolcusu began sharing his work on his Instagram profile where he has gathered almost 80 thousand followers. You can also find his creations on his personal website and YouTube.

Scroll down and take a look at his masterpieces below. Have you ever considered using a fork as a writing tool? Well, maybe you should try as well.

The post Calligrapher Uses Only Forks And Knives As Writing Tools appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Now working as a graphic designer, she treats calligraphy as her side job. A member of the Society for Calligraphy in Southern California, Yoshida has studied with masters calligraphers and has taken many classes and workshops to improve her skills.

“After attending various workshops and conferences, the best takeaway is that calligraphy is a life-long learning experience,” she writes on her website. “There are students who are already very skilled, yet still very humble and want to learn from the best. I find that extremely inspiring. I am a perpetual student and truly believe we should never stop learning to improve our craft. I have learned so much, but I have a lifetime’s worth of studying to go.”

“We need to be constantly learning and honing our skills in order for calligraphy to stay relevant, and to keep up with the changing times and client requests,” she added in an interview with The Pen Company. “I firmly believe that to be a good calligrapher, we need to study from the old masters.”

“Many practicing calligraphers are self-taught and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I knew early on that if I was to be serious about the art and craft of calligraphy, I had to learn it the right way, which is from professional calligraphers,” she went on to explain.

Take a look at some of her work on Instagram:

The post Practice Makes Perfect: Follow Linda Yoshida’s Calligraphy Journey appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Born in 1981 in Paris to Tunisian parents, eL Seed was disconnected from his Arabic roots, speaking only the Tunisian dialect of the language at home. In his teenage years in a kind of quest to rediscover his identity, he began to delve into his own heritage and learned to read and write standard Arabic. It was during this journey that he began to develop his artistic style of calligraphy, which would later bring him worldwide acclaim.

“As a kid, I was into hip hop culture,” he recalled in an interview with Art Radar. “Graffiti was the natural medium for me to express myself in an artistic way. It became more and more a case of [me finding my] identity and reconnecting with my Arabic roots.”

According to eL Seed, Arabic calligraphy was a way for him to build a link between his equally important French and Tunisian backgrounds. “I mix graffiti, which is a ‘western’ medium (although I don’t like to use this term) and Arabic calligraphy, which is an ancient eastern way of expression,” he says. “Bringing both together is a way for me to bring together a picture that seems contradictory, but actually is not. I think that’s the power of calligraphy and art in general. [They] bring two worlds together and link them. That’s why I feel that my work speaks for me.”

Take a look at some of his inspiring work.

The post French Artist Mixes Graffiti and Arabic Calligraphy appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Over the past years, Lampas took part in group exhibitions and art projects held in Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Korea, and the UAE. In 2015, he performed the first world’s largest calligraffiti on the roof of a building in Moscow – an artwork that can be seen from a satellite and on Google Earth.

“For me, Calligraffiti is a great way to create art non-stop,” he shared with the Fendi blog. “Now I can easily take a big bucket of paint and perform my art everywhere. On walls, on glass, on cars!”

“The Calligrafuturism is my self-developed style,” he went on to explain. “We’re all living in a multi-cultural world and if I can help people to learn more about foreign calligraphy, they’ll learn more about other countries. So that’s why Calligrafuturism is so important for me, I don’t want to make something new just because I’m crazy, I want to create it because I can see a very big knowledge and that’s why I’m doing it.”

He admits that he’s always hunting for the next best surface to work on. “Of course, I prefer something smooth, but it depends on the material and the tools,” he says. “So, if I could find something very nice to work on outside this earth, it would probably be the moon. That would be my favorite surface!”

Take a look at some of his out-of-this-world murals:

The post Pokras Lampas Mixes Together Calligraphy and Graffiti appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I feel like lettering has added so much to my life and given me the balance it needed through some busy and tough times,” she gushed in an interview with Surely Simple. “It is amazing how adding just a few hours of a hobby for yourself can make you a better, all-around more effective person. I feel like I am currently the best wife, mom, and teacher I have ever been and I think much of that is allowing myself to take part in an activity that uses my creativity, relaxes me, and brings me constant joy and inspiration.”

Her first and most important tip to starting calligraphers? To have fun! “It is so important to have fun and find your own style through the process of practicing modern calligraphy,” she told Surely Simple. “My biggest tip is to find your own style through lettering. This takes tons of practice but will make your lettering unique and will make it so much more fun!”

Aside from using a pointed pen, she also works with gouache, Tombow brush pens, and watercolor brushes to write her calligraphy. “My favorite way to explore new styles is to pick up a pencil or brush pen and just start writing,” she says. “Yes, there are tons of inspiring people on Instagram and it’s ok to find things that you like in others’ work, but the best way to find your own style is to put down the phone, get out the pens, and just practice until you find what you love.”

Take note!

The post Improve Your Lettering Skills with This Lefty Calligrapher appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Kovalenko’s style replicates ink-splattering calligraphy but, instead of random ink stains, she uses carefully placed stitches. The artist told This is Colossal that “the main idea in this project was to connect two arts—the fast (expressive calligraphy) and the slow one (hand embroidery). It makes you think about the deceitfulness of time.”

Kovalenko studied type design in Moscow and continued to work on her calligraphy skills with Evgeniy Dobrovinsky. You can follow her work on Instagram where she shares updates with a growing number of followers.

The post Olga Kovalenko Creates Beautiful Embroidered Calligraphy appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Born and raised in Hokkaido, Japan, Yamaguchi has been trained to master the basics of calligraphy by learning under the Master Zuiho Sato since at the age of 6, while refining her knowledge and skills. “I grew up in small towns in the countryside of Hokkaido, surrounded by beautiful nature,” she recalled in an interview with The Design Kids. “I started to read and write around age 3. I loved drawing, writing stories, crafts, anything to do with paper, paints, pencils and pens, glue, playing piano, using my hands. I loved exploring the woods, hiking in the mountains, walking into the river, playing with snow.”

While exploring, she’d come up with stories, and write them down in notebooks at home. “Around 5-6 years old, I made a series of picture books with my illustrations and my little fantasy stories; about this bear exploring the forest, flying on the cloud, traveling around the world,” she said. “I remember bringing the book I made to the calligraphy school and showing it to Master Sato. My childhood dream was to become a novel writer.”

Her current works show her exploration in juxtaposing the traditional Eastern classics and her contemporary artistic expressions, as well as her unique ambition of transforming two-dimensional art of Japanese Calligraphy into the art of physical expression through performances.

Currently residing in Berkeley, California, Yamaguchi continues her work on her conceptual calligraphy installations, exhibitions, and performances as she continues to push the boundaries of traditional Eastern classics and contemporary artistic expression.

Prepare to be wowed.

The post Japanese Artist Pushes the Boundaries of Traditional Calligraphy appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I imagined the codes and information within ones’ brain, morphing and dancing around, and at the same time, a pool of ambiguous patterns, in another dimension, connecting to and transferring energy from the vibrations within the brain,” the artist shared on Design Boom. ‘…The brain receives the information in many different forms, and regulates them into familiar and understandable thought patterns.”

He has exhibited his work in multiple solo shows and group shows in the United Arab Emirates, Iran, and the United States. You can also find his work on Instagram, where he shares his creations under the name nasernia.art.

Scroll down to see his artwork and follow him on Instagram for more.

The post Artist Uses Persian Calligraphy to Create Remarkable Art Works appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Now he creates visual work including typography, lettering, and illustrations for clients around the world such as MTV, CNN, and HBO; while his Instagram page is equally trendy, with more than 132k followers.

“The hardest part of my job is finding a good quote or a word,” he admits. “I could spend hours looking for a good one. Since I have the phrase or word I start to make the sketches in different styles, after having chosen the best one I proceed to do it with a marker, brush or directly digital on a tablet. Finally, I place the lettering on a photo or image.”

“​I think the strokes are very important element in order to create a nice lettering piece, also the thickness and kerning are very important,” he says. “Sometimes I have the same mistakes, I usually see different works of great artists to have a better idea of how to do it and that’s how I improve my work!”

Strongly influenced by his background in graffiti, his calligraphy art is bold, vibrant, and full of movement. Take a look at some of our favorite works by him and follow his Instagram page for more.

The post Lettering Artist is Inspired by Graffiti appeared first on PlayJunkie.

With a knack for learning and being creative, Bugbee was drawn to calligraphy and design from a very young age, while growing up in Kansas. Now based in Boulder, Colorado, with her husband and baby boy, she says that her childhood in that rural Kansas was very quiet and uneventful, and so she needed to figure out a way to entertain herself.

“Eventually I discovered that making art was a great way to have fun,” she recalled. “My mother didn’t mind letting me draw or paint on certain walls, and we had a sand driveway that I could make line drawings in after it rained. My grandmother used to color and paint with me, and I remember watching her and thinking, ‘I wish I could keep inside the lines like that!'”

Working nowadays as a calligraphy teacher, she adds: “I think that pretty penmanship comes with being able to draw. If you can convincingly depict a 3D object onto a 2D object (e.g. draw a sunflower on a piece of paper), you can write. It just takes a steady hand and some practice! I don’t use traditional calligraphy styles, though; I like making up styles as I go. Often I create new styles depending on the client and what I think will be best for their event.”

Check out her wonderful work in the gallery below:

The post Lindsey Bugbee’s Calligraphy Art Will Delight You appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“Yazi Yolcusu, which apparently means ‘Text Traveler’ in Turkish, is living proof that it’s not the tools that make the artist, but their skill,” according to Oddity Central. “Using only metal cutlery – a spoon to hold the ink and forks and knives as writing tools – the talented artist creates some of the most amazing calligraphy you’ll ever see.”

The Bursa-based Yolcusu began sharing his work on his Instagram profile where he has gathered almost 80 thousand followers. You can also find his creations on his personal website and YouTube.

Scroll down and take a look at his masterpieces below. Have you ever considered using a fork as a writing tool? Well, maybe you should try as well.

The post Calligrapher Uses Only Forks And Knives As Writing Tools appeared first on PlayJunkie.