Download my favorite templates to elevate your envelope calligraphy! This post also offers elegant design tips and creative ideas to make your envelopes unforgettable this holiday season.
An envelope isn’t just a container for mail—it’s an opportunity to make someone feel cherished. Thoughtfully designed calligraphy, playful stamps, and creative layouts can elevate an envelope into a piece of art. In today’s Premium post, I’ll provide you with my go-to envelope calligraphy guidelines and share recent designs to inspire your own artistic envelopes.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve found myself gravitating to a specific guidelines format if I want to calligraph an elegant envelope. With that format, the recipient’s name is featured in larger calligraphy, with the address written in smaller — but still prominent — calligraphy underneath.
A version of the guidelines exist in the Marvelous Mail Art eBook, but they’re missing an element that I’ve come to regard as invaluable: slant lines. Today, I’ve whipped up two versions of guidelines that should save you a lot of time and guesswork when it comes to planning out elegant envelope calligraphy. You can download both of them by clicking here.
You’ll choose your template depending on how many address lines you want to write. Position your envelope on top of the template, then use a parallel glider to draw guidelines across the envelope.
Next, line up your parallel glider with the slant lines, and draw slant lines across the envelope. Note that your slant lines don’t have to exactly line up with those on the template. As long as they are parallel to each other, they’ll be useful!
Once you’ve made your slant lines, you can draw a line in the middle of the envelope to help with centering.
And voilà! An envelope that’s perfectly prepared for calligraphy styles like Copperplate, Janet, and Flourish Formal. For best results, write a pencil draft of your calligraphy beforehand, as shown below.
In the past month, I’ve gotten to enjoy a couple of relaxed afternoons of envelope calligraphy creations. I’d love to share the result of those creations to give you some envelope calligraphy inspiration!
When “Tomball, Texas” ended up with a position that was a little too close to the left, I saw my chance to center it with a cute little Texas outline. That, paired with a sans serif print last name and a couple of flourishes, makes this envelope calligraphy both playful and elegant.
With an address line like “La Croix Noir” (“The Black Cross”), how could I not make this calligraphy on a black envelope?! Gold seemed like an appropriate contrasting color, so I wrote the address using gold watercolor.
The mood of this envelope is much more casual than the previous two. With its mismatched stamps and loopy, casual letters, it exudes a charmingly whimsical and approachable vibe.
While the envelope below isn’t formal, it’s also not exactly casual. Luxurious gold-enhanced flourishes fill in the space around a wavy address that combines bouncy calligraphy with hand lettering.
A few weeks ago, I shared the envelope calligraphy that I made to accompany European advance copies of The Calligraphy Book. Earlier this month, I used the same notecard set (affiliate link) to make envelopes and cards for American advance copy recipients. All of the envelopes were created using iron gall ink, Arabic gold watercolor, and a Brause EF66 nib in an oblique pen.
These three envelopes feature copious flourishes. They were created with the help of meticulous pencil guidelines that included 55 degree slant lines.
The two envelopes below combine flourishes with large, bouncy calligraphy that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
To make the envelope below, I began with a clean serif hand lettering style. When that ended up looking too bare, out came the flourishes! I love how they sandwich the lettering to make for a cohesive, pretty piece.
I have a professional working relationship with all of The Calligraphy Book advance copy recipients — except for one: Jess of Greenleaf & Blueberry. We’ve been friends for nearly two decades and were roommates during our university days. So, I made a playful heart-themed envelope for her.
Nice envelope calligraphy is certainly enough to make a recipient feel special. However, you can go above and beyond by applying a wax seal to the back flap. Kathryn Hastings recently interviewed me for her 1 Sealed Letter podcast, and I’ve been keeping an eye on her work ever since. Kathryn often enhances her wax seals with paint and other elements, so I took a (fuss-free) page out of her book and applied a couple of gold flakes to my seals.
The result was pretty without looking too stuffy. If you don’t have a wax seal, though, you can always try using washi tape instead!
A beautifully addressed envelope is a small but powerful way to show someone you’re thinking of them. As you put your calligraphy skills into practice, I hope that the guidelines templates and the examples I’ve shared spark ideas for your own designs. Enjoy the process and the joy it brings to those who receive your thoughtful creations!
Warmly,
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