Papyrus is a typeface esigned by American Chris Costello, a prolific graphic designer, illustrator, and web designer, in 1982 and released the next year to foundry Letraset. It was originally hand-drawn over a period of six months by means of calligraphy pen and textured paper. Costello described his goal as a font that would represent what English vernacular would have looked like if written on papyrus 2000 years ago. Papyrus has a number of distinctive human touches, including rough edges, irregular curves, and high horizontal strokes in the caps. ITC, the current owner of the font describes it as an "unusual roman typeface [that] effectively merges the elegance of a traditional roman letterform with the hand-crafted look of highly skilled calligraphy."