Home / ATypI Copenhagen 2025
Date Thursday, April 24th 2025
Venue Royal Danish Academy / Stage Two
Poster

Exploring Emotional Perception in Devanagari Calligraphy: Letter Modulation Techniques, Tools, and Style Variations

Chaitanya Shrikant Gokhale 2025 Chaitanya Shrikant Gokhale

Calligraphy, an art form practiced across scripts globally, is more than just aesthetic handwriting—it is a visual dialogue between the creator and the viewer. Within the Indian context, Devanagari calligraphy holds profound cultural and artistic significance, yet remains underexplored in academic literature compared to international scripts.

This poster examines the concept of letter modulations in Devanagari calligraphy, focusing on how tools, surfaces, and mediums influence the visual and emotional impact of letterforms in visual communication. Modulations—variations in stroke, structure, and flow—play a critical role in shaping the mood and legibility of compositions.

The study explores the following variables:

  • Tools and Techniques: From traditional tools like bamboo pens, nibs, dip pens and brushes to contemporary digital tools, each tool shapes the form and the expression of letterforms uniquely.
  • Surfaces and Mediums: Surface response from different textured papers, canvas, digital screens along with the medium used for writing plays an important role in the visual expression and adds depth and dimension. 
  • Gestural and Structured Styles: The coexistence of traditional, legible styles with gestural, expressive forms highlights the versatility of Devanagari calligraphy. Gestural styles, in particular, emphasize movement and emotion, offering a new dimension to visual storytelling.

This study also examines how these variables contribute to rendering styles—legible versus non-legible—and their capacity to evoke emotional responses. The findings aim to serve as a guide for practitioners and researchers, promoting a deeper understanding of Devanagari calligraphy as a tool for cultural expression and innovative design.

Chaitanya Shrikant Gokhale 2025
Speaker

Chaitanya Shrikant Gokhale

Chaitanya Gokhale is a calligrapher and design educator from India with a Doctorate in the emotional perception of Devanagari Calligraphy. Currently he serves as an Associate Professor of Visual Communication at Srishti Manipal Institute, Bangalore, India. With over 23 years of academia and industry experience, he has developed more than 20 experimental calligraphic styles/typefaces, blending traditional and contemporary methods. As an active practitioner, Chaitanya creates script-based artworks, and shares calligraphy tutorials with a global audience of over 105,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel.

Chaitanya, an experienced mentor to undergraduate and postgraduate students, specializes in visual communication, branding, calligraphy, and typography. His inclusive teaching philosophy integrates traditional and digital practices to inspire cross-cultural storytelling. His research focuses on calligraphy, emotional perception, vernacular type design, and sustainable education, exploring how letterform variations influence emotional responses and mindfulness. By bridging traditional calligraphy with modern design, his work emphasizes visual communication’s role in cultural expression and social connection.

Chaitanya has served on the Doctoral Advisory Committee, Curriculum Design Committee, and Board of Studies at multiple universities. A frequent speaker and panelist, he continues to explore how calligraphy connects with mindfulness, and innovation, advancing the dialogue between tradition and contemporary design.