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Graphics Software Communications

The Handwriting of Type Designers 176

Posted by kdawson from the slow-down-you-move-too-fast dept.
jamie found this blog post wherein an Australian Web technologist, Cameron Adams, wondered whether the handwriting of his favorite type designers encoded some sort of influence on their designs. So he wrote to them and asked for a sample. The result will make you slow down and appreciate the beauty and the aesthetics of type. Or else it won't.
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The Handwriting of Type Designers More

The Handwriting of Type Designers

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  • I'm facinated (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sleeping123 ( 1109587 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @11:03PM (#24110839)
    I'm always criticized for my sloppy handwriting, and it's refreshing to see that the experts in the field of readable, beautiful type can be just as "lazy" or sloppy as me.

    • Re:I'm facinated (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @11:17PM (#24111019)

      ...can be just as "lazy" or sloppy as me.

      I wonder how often these folks write in longhand, and how old they are. I started typing in the seventies, and have noticed that my handwriting hasn't so much changed as lost finesse and regularity as I transitioned to the modern full-time keyboard.

      I can't recall the last time I wrote out a full sentence. I probably haven't done more than a dozen in the last ten years. It's just notes and lables now. People born since the Mac probably have vastly fewer pen-miles than I did at 24. That's got to have an effect on how they approach the drawn charater.

      • Re:I'm facinated (Score:5, Funny)

        by SQLGuru ( 980662 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @11:42PM (#24111239) Homepage Journal

        Most of my writing was the "I will not {action} in class" variety. I've been typing papers since the Commodore 64 days.....I think my teachers appreciated it.

        Layne

        • Layne, is that you?! (Score:5, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 09, 2008 @12:56AM (#24111923)

          Layne, is that you?! It's me, Mrs. Berkshire, your grade 10 teacher! How amazing that we can both be here to reminisce of your brazen school days. I still keep all of my students' detention writings in my desk drawer. Let me write out some of the favorite ones I had you write during your year in my English class.

          1. I will not play Dungeons and Dragons in class.
          2. I will not scream "Beam me up, Scotty!" in class.
          3. I will not program on my abacus in class.
          4. I will not hack administration's punch cards to improve my grades in class.
          5. I will not debate 86-DOS vs Mac 128k in class.
          6. I will not mastur^H^Her math in class.
          7. I will not read slashdot in class.

          Sincerely yours,

          Mrs. Berkshire

      • Re:I'm facinated (Score:5, Interesting)

        by cerberusss ( 660701 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2008 @01:44AM (#24112383) Journal

        I can't recall the last time I wrote out a full sentence. I probably haven't done more than a dozen in the last ten years. It's just notes and lables now.

        I like writing letters. When I was young, I'd write letters to my favorite uncle and grandma, and now when I'm older and support two Plan International children, I write letters to those.
         
        I'm European and have an Indian friend with a 6-year-old. For his birthday, I wrote a letter to the little guy, who was totally amazed that someone would write him a real letter :-)

      • I've just realised (I'm getting slow!) that my lad "wrote" his first words yesterday.

        He typed his name (with help finding a couple of keys) then he wrote "Dad" and "Mum" (I pressed shift but didn't otherwise interfere).

        He's nowhere near producing tight/defined letter forms yet as he's only just 3 this month.

        Perhaps I should switch him to Dvorak before it's too late?

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by EvilIdler ( 21087 )

          Perhaps I should switch him to Dvorak before it's too late?

          What, and be reported for child abuse?!

    • Re:I'm facinated (Score:5, Interesting)

      by kencurry ( 471519 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2008 @12:06AM (#24111481)

      was modding but have to post...

      "...can be just as "lazy" or sloppy as me."

      Seriously?

      I thought their writing was gorgeous; compared to my horrible chicken scratches.

      Dude, if you want to see sloppy writing, I will send you a sample.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I am no expert nor a professional, but I used to make fonts with Fontographer. I don't think my handwriting had anything to do with the result. As a rule, my handwriting is pretty messy. When I was a student, not many friends could borrow my notes. That said, if I apply some effort, I can write legibly and with more effort and time, I can "draw" sentences in good lettering or calligraphy. It's just that normally I don't want to spend effort and time to write nicely. Creating fonts is like drawing. You try t

    • ...it was as messy and unreadable as my handwriting.

      Sigh!

    • Yea, but remember that the difference between a slob and a virtuoso is that the virtuoso spent many, many years learning the rules so that they may choose which to break, while a slob is just, well, sloppy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jez9999 ( 618189 )

      Marian Bantjes's "crazy little backhand" writing is a darn sign easier to read than her 'true' handwriting! I couldn't even make out several words in the latter.

  • Naw, it dosen't (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ethanol-fueled ( 1125189 ) * on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @11:05PM (#24110867) Homepage Journal
    The only one of those whose writing resembles one of their fonts is Mark Simonson [ms-studio.com] with his "felt tip roman" font.

    The last two in TFA do have rather spiffy handwriting, though.
  • All caps block lettering FTW!

  • Lost Art (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @11:07PM (#24110891)

    That would be an interesting poll:

    How many words per day do you write with "pen and paper"?
    o) 0
    o) 1-5 (passwords on post-it)
    o) 6-20 (milk, breat, ramen, condoms, beer, ...)
    o) 21-200 (still in school, you insensitive ...)
    o) >200 (i do it for a living!)

    lsr@#suechtler

    • Re:Lost Art (Score:5, Funny)

      by Kingrames ( 858416 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @11:56PM (#24111375)

      Is that supposed to be "bread" or "breast"?

      I ask because it's on the same line as milk, rammin', condoms, and beer, and it could go either way.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Keruo ( 771880 )

      I write alot of code and db structures on paper first. It helps me visualize the problem better.
      Also essential for trying to decipher code someone wrote in hungarian notation.

      I used to keep a diary which I wrote with stylus pen on pda.
      I think it formed my handwriting to different style, I used to write only cursive before, but now I mostly write print.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ShaunC ( 203807 )

      I like this as a poll idea.

      I fall somewhere into the 21-200 realm; usually it's random notes about things I need to do later in the day/week. I'll grab the nearest sheet of paper and begin using it as a note pad, then repeat that process for several months until I have a large stack of papers at my desk, all with cryptic writings on both sides. Eventually I become fed up with the stack and purge it, sort of interesting to leaf back through the past few months' worth of notes (to ensure I'm not trashing anyt

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by phorest ( 877315 )

      How many words per day do you write with "pen and paper"?
      o) 0
      o) 1-5 (passwords on post-it)
      o) 6-20 (milk, breat, ramen, condoms, beer, ...)
      o) 21-200 (still in school, you insensitive ...)
      o) >200 (i do it for a living!)

      You left off the obligatory:
      o) I have Cowboy Neal do all my writing...

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Splab ( 574204 )

      While I program for a living much of my day is spent writing stuff with pen and paper. A computer simply cannot support the same flow of thoughts as a couple of pieces of paper can. When I'm done sketching out my project I turn to the computer for the actual programming. /so >200 //Also I think it scores a point or two with the boss when you take notes pen and paper wise, he can see that you are actually paying attention while someone staring intensely at his laptop screen could just as well be playing s

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Thiez ( 1281866 )

        > While I program for a living much of my day is spent writing stuff with pen and paper. A computer simply cannot support the same flow of thoughts as a couple of pieces of paper can.

        Hear hear! Pen+paper is great for drawing complex systems, writing an algorithm in extremely high-level pseudocode, and debugging. Especially debugging. It's amazing how easy it is to find errors in your code when you execute it by hand on a piece of paper.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jez9999 ( 618189 )

          It's amazing how easy it is to find errors in your code when you execute it by hand on a piece of paper.

          It's amazing how much easier it is to write it on a PC and let the compiler tell you.

  • In related news (Score:5, Funny)

    by Aussenseiter ( 1241842 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @11:07PM (#24110897)
    The author of that article neglected to mention that the creators of Arial, having devised a font so perfect they chopped their own hands off because they knew their work could never be surpassed.

  • I would be interested to see (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FlyingSquidStudios ( 1031284 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @11:09PM (#24110919)
    a similar article with comic book letterers.

    • Re:I would be interested to see (Score:4, Interesting)

      by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2008 @01:49AM (#24112419) Homepage

      Now that's interesting. I've been known to do some comic book lettering [profession...erhero.com] from time to time, but my actual handwriting is pretty damn horrible these days. Small, but horrible. The reason is application. I use handwriting to jot down notes, where the primary goal is speed. Studies have found that the slowest known way to write the English language is in block caps, so that's out the window straight away. The overall look of the letters goes downhill from there.

      By comparison, writing letters for comic books is really more of a kind of drawing. You have to read the script to know what to write, but when you're making the marks on the paper you're not really thinking about the words at all, just the letterforms (in my experience, anyway -- and that's even when I wrote the script myself).

      Even more interesting, my dad was also pretty good at block caps. I used to see his block writing around the house, on moving boxes etc. It was even more precise than mine (I assume because in comics you're trying to convey a little bit of emotion with the letters). His handwriting for notes was legible, but totally different. And my dad was also a doctor. I've seen him write prescriptions. They are illegible, totally illegible. I swear to you it's a code! I bet they write them that way to prevent hypochondriacs and junkies from writing believable fake scrips.

  • That was unbelieveably cool (Score:4, Funny)

    by Scutter ( 18425 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @11:09PM (#24110925) Journal

    I've always wished my handwriting didn't suck so hard. Now I feel even worse. Thanks, Slashdot!

  • How enlightening (Score:3, Funny)

    by zazelite ( 870533 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @11:12PM (#24110961)

    FTA, it's clear that even a chicken can create good fonts.

    Perhaps the writer should have wondered whether the designs of his favorite type designers 'encoded' some sort of influence on their handwriting. Clearly, they do not.

  • I would love to see (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @11:24PM (#24111085)

    the handwriting of the creators of Wingdings.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by can56 ( 698639 )
      ... the handwriting of Donald Knuth (the creator of Metafont/TeX/...)

  • Next on /. (Score:3, Funny)

    by zobier ( 585066 ) <zobier@NoSpAm.zobier.net> on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @11:28PM (#24111117)
    The Phrenology of Plastic Surgeons.

  • I had no idea (Score:4, Interesting)

    by deepgrey ( 1246108 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @11:32PM (#24111151)
    that there are so many people who are renowned for creating text... and that someone would have a "favorite." Incredible.

    • Re:I had no idea (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SoupIsGoodFood_42 ( 521389 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @11:48PM (#24111297)

      Why wouldn't there be? It's not like designing a typeface is easy.

    • Re:I had no idea (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 09, 2008 @12:44AM (#24111799)

      You must be new... to typography.

      What's surprising is the appearance of an article like this on Slashdot, a site frequented by roughly zero typographers. Not that the lack of typographers is a bad thing, Slashdot is about Free software, bashing Microsoft, and language paradigm flamewars. Hardly this site's target market.

      I have more than a passing interest in typography, but trust me, it takes years to learn about this stuff. I would suggest Slashdot leaves type related articles to Typophile [typophile.com], I love typography [ilovetypography.com] and all the others.

      Remember that this is not just creating text. It is an intricate art form, dating back thousands of years. If you, or anyone else, wants to educate themselves The Elements of Typographic Style [typebooks.org] is essential reading. One other thing I've found: many typographers (but not type designers so much) are even more pedantic, exacting and pretentious than software engineers, or even grammar Nazis. If you posted the above on the Typophile forums, they'd probably be round your house with pitchforks and torches. :)

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by CaseyB ( 1105 )

        One other thing I've found: many typographers (but not type designers so much) are even more [...] pretentious than software engineers

        Wow, have you ever done a great job of illustrating that point.

        I have more than a passing interest in typography, but trust me, it takes years to learn about this stuff. I would suggest Slashdot leaves type related articles to Typophile.

        If you cared a whit about the subject as an art, you'd be happy to have it exposed to more people in such an interesting way. Frankly, I'm happy to have seen a really interesting article without having to risk visiting a site populated by assholes like yourself.

        • Hah, well said. I was thinking the same thing about this guy being such a snob. Maybe he is the author of ones of those blogs he is plugging. :)
    • that someone would have a "favorite."

      I am a total font geek. Garamond and Futura are two of my favorites. I will spend longer perfecting the fonts on a presentation than on entering the text. My husband thinks I'm crazy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Atario ( 673917 )

      Rule #34 of geekery: There are geeks for it. No exceptions.

  • Of course... (Score:2, Funny)

    by gmf ( 810466 )
    For some of them it's obvious why they became typographers. No one was able to decipher their handwriting, so they just had to come up with an alternative...

  • Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheModelEskimo ( 968202 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2008 @12:21AM (#24111623)
    There are some interesting correlations there, comparing relative x-height and the feel of the typography from person to person. I'm not a professional typographer, but I teach basic typography units as part of computer graphics courses.

    I'm guessing a pro typographer could easily see correlation among the examples. Designer-types often express in their handwriting what they desire their overall "vibe" to be. Since typography is abused so much, and there are so many edge cases to look after, it's only natural that the fonts that result look more stilted and less artsy than the handwriting that may have inspired them.

    Related principle: Design students learn very early on not to set large bodies of type with decorative fonts.

    • students learn very early on not to set large bodies of type with decorative fonts.

      Oh My God! You think it was a mistake to set my thesis in Comic Sans MS?

  • Importance? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I fail to see how the quality of one's handwriting is important. The point of day-to-day writing is to write something down that is legible, and can be easily re-assimilated when necessary.

    People who spend more than 1/4 of a second per letter aren't handwriting; they're either being artistic, or trying to boost pride through snobbery. I can "handwrite" much nicer than my everyday writing, but why would I waste 3 minutes writing a single sentence just to make sure each letter is curved?

  • Skewed sample? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ShaunC ( 203807 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2008 @12:44AM (#24111807)

    It strikes me that English is likely not the first language of many of these typographers, yet all but one provided their sample written in English. I wonder if that unintentionally skewed the samples for the better?

    It's been nearly a decade since I've put pen[cil] to paper in another language, but I know that when I was writing French in high school, I did much better at penmanship than when I was taking notes in class or doing other day-to-day writing. It wasn't so much a conscious effort at making my handwriting look better, as it was the natural delay in writing something down slowly as I translated it in my head. I imagine it's a similar principle to forging a signature; you're being very deliberate about what you write, so it tends to come out looking cleaner.

    That said, Erik and Dino have really cool handwriting. My own daily jottings typically resemble Goran's - and that's writing in my native language! I could probably qualify to be a doctor based upon my handwriting alone; guess it's a good thing that I type well.

  • Typography != Calligraphy

  • 25 years old and I use fountain pens. I bet I am in the minority here by a lot. The contradictions that are computer scientists.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by arth1 ( 260657 )

      25 years old and I use fountain pens. I bet I am in the minority here by a lot.

      Yep, I am fairly certain that 25 year olds is a minority on Slashdot.

      As for pen choice, I think you'll find more fountain pen users here than average for Western societies. And far more rapidograph users.

      I miss the good old days when "code review" was best done by reading the source code on fanfold paper, sliding it over a coffee table, one box at a time. Comments would be with rapidograph (or similar) so you could cram in info

  • The result will make you slow down and appreciate the beauty and the aesthetics of type. Or else it won't.

    Ah, you can't go wrong with a tautology. Unless you can.

  • first and last, alpha and omega (Score:5, Informative)

    by wickerprints ( 1094741 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2008 @03:00AM (#24113029)

    These are the handwriting samples that I like most. For some reason, both of these individuals write their "d" in a single upward sweeping loop, without the subsequent vertical downward stroke--although Dino seems to do this only for the terminal "d."

    Erik's sample is interesting to me because of the unconventional ampersand, and how it is clear that he writes the stem of his "i" before dotting it (I do the reverse when I print, which is my regular script, as opposed to writing in full cursive, which I rarely do).

    Sebastian's handwriting is vaguely reminiscent of graffiti artists. I like it, in particular, I like the shape of the "a" and the overall crowded, upright feel.

    Eduardo's sample makes me think he's either playing a joke, or he's 7 years old. The apostrophe is absolutely bizarre--it is not so much written as it is drawn.

    Marian's "crazy backhand" is actually my favorite among her three styles of handwriting, but what is more curious is that she even *has* three clearly distinct styles of script.

    Kris's handwriting looks remarkably--in fact, uncannily--similar to the handwriting of my ex-boyfriend, who is German. I wonder if he studied in Germany.

    Finally, Dino's sample is really quite beautiful--it has distinctive touches (the "D", "s", and "g" in particular), is calligraphic, and exudes elegance.

    The other samples I found mostly unremarkable. Sorry. There are some shared themes between each designer's handwriting and their typefaces, but I think the comparison is tenuous as well as retrospective. If one did not know in advance which writing sample belonged to which typographer, it would not have been at all obvious how to match them up.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jez9999 ( 618189 )

      Erik's sample is interesting to me because of the unconventional ampersand,

      That's an ampersand? Looks a lot more like @ to me.

      and how it is clear that he writes the stem of his "i" before dotting it

      That's common. How do you think they got the phrase, "dotting the i's and crossing the t's"?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Inda ( 580031 )
      Marian's three styles of script is amazing but not that much so.

      I have two, maybe three. One is for my eyes only; very few people can read it. One for letters that is a neater version of the previous. One for my daughter who needs to understand what has been written. She is seven.

  • More importantly, is handwriting even that relevant any more? Yes, they still teach "good" handwriting in schools but it's rarely about legibility as much as it is "follow these rules". I was taught to do a stupid "tidal wave" shape lower-case, joined-up "s" when I was at school and I was very pleased when they STOPPED that rubbish and just let me hand-write how I needed to. Their way took me several seconds per character, no matter how much I practiced, my way took me several characters per second and w

    • It's still got a way to go before it's universal but kids now learn QWERTY at the same time as they learn to write.

      If only we could just switch that to Dvorak. Not that I can really complain, but it is annoying to have to use a public terminal and they will not allow you to select alternate layouts. The fact that the letters on the keyboard itself don't match the layout aren't that big of a deal. But now I do associate certain letters in one layout with the other.

  • ...nothing more than a huge ad for selling fonts?

  • Kibo? (Score:2)

    by chrish ( 4714 )

    No James "Kibo" Parry in there? WTF. Did he retire or something?

    Yeah, I'm old.

  • I'm too lazy to Google the whys and wherefores, so can someone explain to me why, when talking about fonts, the word 'foundry' is used? I'm presuming it has something to do with the original way of making fonts which involved pouring metal to make each letter.

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