Anne Davnes offers four-week Mini Bodoni journaling alphabet course

Anne Davnes is turning Mini Bodoni into a journaler’s precision class, not just another alphabet exercise. Her four-session online course runs Wednesdays from June 10 through July 1, 2026, meets live on Google Meet, and is open to all skill levels at a price of $120.

Why Mini Bodoni works on the page

The draw here is the scale. Davnes describes the class as a smaller, more delicately detailed version of the classic Bodoni typeface, with a flourished look and feel that suits notebook pages, journal spreads, and other compact formats far better than a grand formal layout. That matters because Bodoni’s appeal has always rested on its dramatic contrast and refined geometry, qualities that can look majestic in a large composition but become much harder to control when the letters are compressed into a small space.

Bodoni itself comes with serious pedigree. Giambattista Bodoni, the Italian printer, type designer, compositor, publisher, and typographer who lived from 1740 to 1813, first designed the face in the late 18th century. It sits in the Didone, or modern serif, tradition, which is exactly why a contemporary calligraphy course can treat it as both a historical reference point and a living style for present-day journaling. In a mini version, that lineage becomes a practical challenge: spacing has to stay disciplined, stroke contrast has to remain readable, and the letterforms have to keep their elegance without turning brittle.

That is where the calligraphy angle becomes more than aesthetic. A mini Bodoni alphabet asks you to think carefully about the nib you choose, the pressure you apply, and the distance between letters on the page. If the nib is too broad for the format, the thick downstrokes can crowd the counters; if it is too fine, the style can lose the weight that gives Bodoni its authority. In a journaling context, the real skill is balancing that formal serif structure with enough softness to keep the page inviting rather than overworked.

How the four-session format is set up

Davnes has built the course as a straightforward Wednesday evening sequence, with sessions from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM Eastern. That gives the class ten live hours across four weeks, enough time to build the alphabet gradually instead of trying to absorb the whole style in one long workshop. The structure also leaves room for the kind of repetition Mini Bodoni needs, since small-format lettering often improves only after a student has had time to revisit spacing and stroke consistency between meetings.

The replay policy is one of the class’s most practical features. Sessions are recorded and available for download during the course and for two weeks after class ends, which makes the class easier to fit around summer schedules, travel, and uneven practice time. For a style that depends on careful control, that extra window matters: you can return to a session after a practice page shows where the thick-thin contrast drifted, or after a journal spread makes it clear that your spacing needs tightening.

The course is listed as a calligraphy online course via Google Meet, and John Neal Books places it at $120. The all-levels label is important here. Mini Bodoni can look intimidating because of its polished, highly structured appearance, but the four-meeting format and recorded access make it approachable for non-experts who want a formal serif alphabet without committing to a much longer studio sequence.

Where it sits in Davnes’ teaching calendar

The Mini Bodoni class is part of a broader spring and summer 2026 online schedule that includes a three-course bundle totaling 16 weeks of learning. That larger slate shows Davnes working in a sustained online format rather than as a one-off instructor posting a single date on the calendar. Her site also lists additional Wednesday classes later in the season, which places Mini Bodoni inside a fuller teaching rhythm for students who like structure and continuity.

Davnes says she has been teaching creatives since 1997, a long runway that gives this course more weight than a simple seasonal offering. That kind of experience matters in a style like Bodoni, where the difference between a clean page and a cramped one often comes down to tiny adjustments in pen angle, spacing, and the handling of contrast. A teacher who has spent decades in the classroom is more likely to know where beginners get stuck, especially when a formal serif alphabet is being compressed into journaling scale.

The same June 10 to July 1 block appears across her class calendar and Eventbrite listing, which keeps the schedule consistent across her online presence. That consistency fits the course itself: Mini Bodoni is about taking a classic, highly controlled alphabet and making it usable in a smaller, more personal setting. The appeal is not just that the letters look polished, but that they can do that work inside a journal page.

For calligraphers who want a serif with presence but need it to live comfortably on a compact spread, this is the kind of class that answers the practical questions first. Mini Bodoni asks for precision, but Davnes has wrapped that precision in a four-week structure that gives the alphabet room to settle in, one Wednesday at a time.