#neographist

Step 1: Base lines.

Aka guidelines. Just do an unfilled rectangle and stack it on itself twice.

Step 2: Basic calligraphy

Choose your brush. Different brush shapes have different dynamics, and different dynamics will wield different results on paper.

Best experienced on actual paper, for digital programs cannot give you the exact right feel of drag when you try to do wrong strokes. Usually, if you write by hand on paper, and it's feeling effortless, then you're doing it right.

Cheat sheet for brush tips of different kinds:

Step 3: The execution

You might want to try asemic writing at first, or take inspiration from other writing systems that already exist. Know that it is nigh impossible to create something that never existed before, for your writing system will always bear similarity to at least a dozen others.

There are multiple methods of making scripts,

Engineered

You set up a goal and plan things up before setting up the canons. Usually used for featural scripts.

Post-asemic

Make an asemic array of symbols and assign them Latin equivalents.

Monogramic

Make a monogram - some complex symbol with lots of strokes - and break it into lesser shapes erasing some of the original strokes. Similar to the Combinatorics method. Example below:

Combinatoric

Make particles, combine in different ways. See below:

Natural evolution simulation

Following the pipeline "pictogram" -> "letter". As seen below:

Other useful tips:

Omniglot.com: go there and take a look at how many writing systems are there in the world. This site stores lots of conscripts as well, and you can submit yours if you want to!

r/neography is a huge subreddit that has everything about neography (aka the art of creating new writing systems).

Learn about what kinds of writing systems there are. Basically they are categorized by how much information a symbol carries. It could be one sound, a syllable, or whole words. Though there are nuances, explained on r/neography's wiki, by the way.

Practice. Doodle a lot. You will get the grip of it eventually.

There are 26 letters in the English alphabet. The middle is between M and N, as M is letter #13. If you include numerals, that's 36 symbols. If you include punctuation, that's about 48 symbols depending on how much punctuation you want.

I have a sideblog called @thecrazyneographist meant just for neography, and all the scripts posted there are free to use per request!

Hi! My name is Arcee and I am a worldbuilder with a BIG interest in neography.

This blog is nothing more than a stash of ALL of my neographies that I have documented since I began doing neography by the beginning of 2022. You can view the scripts faster by using the archive.

Mainer blog is @thecrazyworldbuilder, visit it and also my other blogs, @444names, @cryptolangsguy and @verical.

I will begin listing my neographies from the very beginning of the documented list, tagging each with the blog's tag, as well as couple more.

I have open commissions for artistic designs using my neographies, or I can create a neographic script for you!

If the project takes less than an hour to finish, you get the end result free of charge (accepting tips, you pay what you think the script is worth), longer than that depends on the amount of symbols and time spent designing the script; the standard English alphabet cipher with 26 symbols costs 30$.

On my pfp is Ahimiko, the mascot of this blog. She is an anthro canine of mixed heritage, and is a powerful symbolomancer (mage specializing in casting via projecting symbols of different kinds: the stronger the symbolism, the deeper the mysticism, and the more complex the symbol the more precise and specific is the spell she casts). Say hi! :D

Most of my scripts are purely ciphers for English. I do not care to make conlangs for every single one of them, for I enjoy the act of creation.

On creation: Some anon asked for the methods I use to create cohesive and constant-style scripts. A good post on my other blog might help, listing the methods.

NOTE THAT ALL OF MY CREATIONS ARE FREE TO USE, BUT YOU MUST CREDIT ME AS THE CREATOR/NOTIFY ME BEFORE USING THEM IN YOUR COMIC, ART, BOOK OR ANYTHING

As well - feel free to ask for assistance and guidance in usage of my scripts in DMs; Some of them lack explanation, and might be bit confusing.

And finally, please, if you like my work, spare a bit of money for my Ko-Fi.

ASK BOX RULES:

Refrain from using anonymous asks, since it cuts off the possibility of me responding more directly into your DMs if I deem them impossible to answer via post and won't be able to notify you about it, making me look rude.

You can send positive feedback - it will be stored in the bottom of this post (see below).

You can send requests for scripts, like "Futhark but more like Ogham", or "a Katakana chart inspired by Klingon". Those are free, unlike the commissions, hence I am not required to do adjustments, follow the idea 1:1, nor I am required to make them in the first place.

Don't ask for tips, guidance, or tutorials: This blog is purely an archive of my works. If you need help, go to @conlangcrab where I will answer your asks directly, just remember to address them to "Arcee", since the blog is run by two people there.

Updates on this post below:

I make neographic scripts for already existing writing systems (like Latin or Katakana) because I can't create a conlang for every single aesthetic I can come up with for a writing system.

By Ides of March, 2023, this blog has 350 distinct scripts documented, all created by me.

A pinterest user has been repeatedly stealing my works I've posted on Reddit without notifying or crediting me.

By 4/4/2023, there are over 400 scripts documented.

By 3rd of May, there are over 500 scripts documented.

By 27 of June, there are exactly 600 scripts documented.

By 7th of July, there are exactly 700 scripts documented.

By 25th of August, there are exactly 800 scripts documented.

Another pinterest user has been stealing my works from Reddit.

By 17th of October, there are exactly 900 scripts documented.

By 12th of November, there are exactly 1000 scripts documented.

By 23rd of December, there are exactly 1100 scripts documented.

By 2/10/2024, there are exactly 1200 scripts documented.

By 3/29/2024, there are exactly 1300 scripts documented.

By 6/13/2024, there are exactly 1400 scripts documented.

By 8/12/2024, there are exactly 1500 scripts documented.

By 10/29/2024, there are exactly 1600 scripts documented.

By 12/25/2024, there are exactly 1700 scripts documented.

By Ides of March, 2025, there are exactly 1800 scripts documented.

By 7/19/2025, there are exactly 1900 scripts documented.

Positive anon asks under the cut (you are encouraged to send more!)

Abugida with various modes (alphabetic, abjad) and rich consonant inventory.

Syllable structure is CV, but can change using modifiers. Will include large quantities of explanation on diacritics and mechanics later.

Current glyph inventory:

I've listed ALL of my neographic scripts in one blog!

Consider following because I will post there from time to time, documenting new scripts!

Hello fans yes I am alive lmao

So I see there is activity on this blog so Imma throw a brick at'che, catch:

CONSCRIPTS

Constructed Scripts are a common topic in the media: may it be Tengwar, Daedric, Klingon, Circular Gallifreyan or else.

We as worldbuilders do need to use it well right? So what are the differences between bad and good conscripts?

1) Writing system or a childish cipher?

So tell me the difference between those two pictures:

and

First is the Gnommish Alphabet, used in the Artemis Fowl series, and second is Ingari, created by Kyle Elshoff. Do you see the difference or should I point it out?

There is no actual way the Gnommish alphabet would stick long in the reality as a writing system: it is too complicated, and most probably is too difficult to write. Scribbling every single letter, and I checked it, takes around five seconds to finish, and is unreasonably ink-consuming. It is a fun way of encrypting messages for children, yes, but in a real world, a realistic world, it would not stick for long. Of course there existed Egyptyan hieroglyphs and many other writing systems, but they were ancient, and the reason they died off is because they were not perfect and were too "stiff" to use.

Ingari on the other hand is swift, takes lesser space, and is consuming less ink per letter: some consonants might appear alike each other, but a skilled scribe instantly notices what is what. It has it's own aesthetic, and isn't just a jimble of stamps, like the Gnommish.

This is regarding the alphabetic systems, yes. It is acceptable for something like Gnommish to exist, but it won't stick for long. Perhaps Gnommish as we see in AF evolved from a hieroglyphic writing, and now is just a rebus of pictograms depicting objects and carrying the sound of the initial phoneme (for example, the word for "dragonfly" might start with an A, and because of that, is depicting the letter A).

2) ˜”°•.˜”°• Aesthetic •°”˜.•°”˜

You can sense the difference between different writing systems, don't you? Might it be Cyrillic, Latin, Georgian, Hebrew, Hiragana, Hangul, Arabic, Aztec, Egyptian or whatever else.

When I make conscripts, usually, I make boundaries. Might it be a maximum of strokes per letter or some elements used in writing, some specific way of depicting specific letters (like the vowels, consonants, fluids, semi-vowels, sonors, thrills, stops et cetera) or some unique ideas.

Writing systems are of different kinds: remember that there is not only Alphabets, like Latin with which this post is written with, but also Abugidas, Abjads, Logographies, Syllabaries and so much more. I reccomend, strongly recommend you to research on that before making it.

Gerianish:

Codex of Matan:

Ingedol:

All of those scripts are basically ciphers for English, even though those shown are modes for English and are used differently with respectative conlangs or cryptolangs they are bound with.

Gerianish has descenders and ascenders, it is heavily inspired by the at sign (@) and the Georgian, and has a degree of featurality to it, different letters that sound alike or are phonemically close to each other are, in most cases, mirrored versions of each other. The little "flower" diacritic is used for easier differentiation of letters from each other.

Codex of Matan is stylish, high-tech to a degree and looks a bit unusual. It was made how? With using the frequency table of letters in English, numerating all letters 0-25 and then transferring those values into ternary numeral system, with symbols E, T and A representing 0, 1 and 2's. I like this one because of the solid style and the fact it is used by high-tech beings.

Ingedol is, too, quite remarkable. See, each letter is composed out of three possible elements with four allowed positions, and each symbol thus is unique. I believe it to look pretty when written in a long row of text.

(Each individual one of these is free to use, just remember to tag my authorship on them ^^)

3) Steal

Yes, I know that sounds unright, but just look at this:

Left one is Greek, right is Latin and bottom is Cyrillic. So much letters that look alike!

There is no stealing in writing, there is deriving, evolution and borrowing.

You like that particular letter from Daedric that depicts F - Hefhed? Sure do, copy it. Your O looks like real life O? No problem with that.

Your glyps kind of look like Japanese? If anyone tells you that that's cultural appropriation tell them to stop using Latin then and go live in a cave, because writing systems are constantly evolving, m8.

As well, some of my writing systems are based on Tengwar, Pigpen Cypher and Katakana, because I like their style.

OF COURSE YES, if you directly steal some symbols or an entire alphabet from some source and edit it slightly it might look suspicious and frowned upon (*looks at Alternian*), but as long as you can wiggle your way out of it, it's kind of okay.

:p

Letters stack to form words and each word being a single hieroglyph.

Priority of reading stacked letters is always left-right top-bottom with connected ones going first. There might be exceptions in design but anyways.

This script is used mainly by my oriental inspired races, such as imakoaka, tetu-mon-igo and bosutoku.

An example of text: