A halfway point between handwriting and lettering, calligraphy is the practice of writing with a deliberate and artful style, with a consistency across letterforms that is not entirely unlike type.

Jessica Hische says that “calligraphy is writing and lettering is drawing.” A calligrapher creates the letterforms as they write; a letterer first sketches or draws the letterforms before finishing and/or digitizing the lettering piece.

Calligraphic typefaces attempt to create the illusion of calligraphy, often with the help of OpenType features such as swashes or contextual alternates.