Clerical script

The clerical script (traditional Chinese 隷書, simplified Chinese 隶书) is an archaic style of Chinese calligraphy which, due to its high legibility to modern readers, is still being used for artistic flavor in a variety of functional applications such as headlines, signboards and advertisements. Highly angular, it developed from the seal script and is the precursor to the regular script that Chinese is usually written in today. A character written in clerical script is more often wider than it is high.

Being more intelligible to the common user of Chinese than the seal script, it is used today mainly for emphasis and appear prominently on advertisements, notices and logos.