# Calligraphy with Inkscape

> Published  Jul 07 2018, last updated Jul 07 2026  
> By Ryan Fleck <hello@this-site> and written without LLMs!  
> Original post at <https://ryanfleck.ca/2018/2018-07-07-calligraphy/>  
> An article of astonishing quality and insight. Happy Hacking!


With the goal of replacing my questionably-proprietary **R**, I
decided to scrawl a fresh svg in InkScape. After an embarrassing
number of revisions and rework, gravitating further away then back
towards the original design, here is the final product.

<br />

![The final "R" design](/legacy/r.svg?invert=true&center=true)

<br />

I wanted the new image to meet the following criteria:

- Must look good in a circular or square format.
- Should be highly scalable and look good when tiny/huge.
- Mono/Dichromatic color scheme, for visual simplicity.
- Needs to look professional/sharp and usable in a business
  environment.
- Made by me; no attributions, payment, credits, etc.

Getting my tablet set up on Fedora 28 was a breeze; plug and play,
full support, no drivers. Using inkscape for the first time was neat;
I really appreciate the properties of vector graphics, and how much
smaller they can be than png/jpeg/gif due to their mathematical
nature.

**Here are a bunch of the revisions:**

![Design iteration](/legacy/R/iterable.png?invert=true&centered=true)

I settled on Revision 17 for a while, but became unhappy when I saw
how it looked as a slack profile image. It didn't scale how I wanted.
I felt it was too thn to properly fill out square spaces.

| **Revision 10** | **Revision 12** | **Revision 17** |
|:---------------------------:|:--------------------------:|:--------------------------:|
| ![](/legacy/R/R10.svg?invert=true)|![](/legacy/R/R12.svg?invert=true)|![](/legacy/R/R17.svg?invert=true)|



Here I was attempting to visually fill the circle shape. A thin _R_
didn't make the bold impression I needed it to as a profile/small
image.

|**Revision 18** | **Revision 19** | **Revision 22**|
|:---------------------------:|:--------------------------:|:--------------------------:|
|![](/legacy/R/R18.svg?invert=true)|![](/legacy/R/R19.svg?invert=true)|![](/legacy/R/R22.svg?invert=true)|

Designs 19 through 23 were a fair bit thicker. Though 22 was much
better at smaller sizes, I really liked the thin lines of designs
10-12. The lent an elegance to the design that were not present in the
original profile image or any of the thicker iterations. A final
visual refinement, 23, attempted to strike a balance between 22
and 17. I feel I did a fairly good job:

|**Revision 22** | **Revision 23**|
|:---------------------------:|:--------------------------:|
|![](/legacy/R/R22.svg?invert=true)|![](/legacy/R/R23.svg?invert=true)|

So, next time you're out to make a personal logo for yourself, don't
turn to GIMP or Adobe Photoshop; make yourself a clean, infinitely
scalable _SVG!_ Next step is to replace my signature, followed by some
little doodles and generic diagrams.

**Update:** I've unfortunately gravitated even closer to the original
design; perhaps I've just become accustomed to seeing this shape.
Eventually I hope to play with Inkscape more to make an interesting,
original design.

|**Revision 23** | **Revision 25**|
|:---------------------------:|:--------------------------:|
|![](/legacy/R/R23.svg?invert=true)|![](/legacy/R/R25.svg?invert=true)|

I'm clueless about personal branding, but I think something unique
that I've created myself must be a step in the correct direction.

Thanks for reading,

<p>

<img class="invert" src="/legacy/art/s.png" alt="RCF"
style="border-radius:0; width: 289px;"/>

</p>



> Thank you for reading!  
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