The Handwriting of Type Designers

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.

I'm facinated

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

...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

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?!

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

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 :-)

Re:I'm facinated

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:I'm facinated

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

I will send you a piece of paper to sign.

It already has a little writing and some numbers on it, but don't worry about those. Just sign on the line in the bottom right corner.

Naw, it dosen't

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.

Lost Art

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

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:Lost Art

It's slashdot man. His mom asked him to pick up the condoms. He showed her how to setup a myspace profile and has regretted it ever since.

In related news

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.

Re:In related news

Their hands were actually cut off for their poor and uninspired ripoff of Helvetica.

That was unbelieveably cool

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

Re:That was unbelieveably cool

That was unbelieveably cool

No, it was believably cool.

Unbelievably cool would be if it came with a pony.

Re:That was unbelieveably cool

Unbelievably cool would be if it came with a pony.

What, you didn't get yours?

I would love to see

the handwriting of the creators of Wingdings.

Interesting

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.

first and last, alpha and omega

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:Is it really surprising...

Not really, think of it this way, if you are going to be making letters that will be reproduced thousands and millions of times, you are going to try to make each one look the best, if you are writing a card, it doesn't really matter as long as it is somewhat readable.

Re:Is it really surprising...

so, what's the difference between ledgible and artistic?

One of them is a word.

Re:Is it really surprising...

I disagree. I found their writing really beautiful. Handwriting in the end, isn't different from drawing (nor drawing is much different from handwriting) so you have to look at them artistically and study their lines, shapes and relationships like you would do with a free hand sketch. Apart from revealing their personality (as for any of us), handwriting is the best proof that everyone has an artist inside of us. And an art critic, as well. :)

Re:Bah!

All caps block lettering FTW!

I AGREE FULLY. WHO NEEDS LOWERCASE?

Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

Re:I had no idea

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: the beauty of type

You have no idea what you're talking about. As evidenced by your reference to "creative use of whitespace" and "web sidebars" (?!). Those things have exactly nothing to do with typography, they're hallmarks of the sorts of wankers who have "Web Designer" on their business cards. Actual good typography is very difficult to execute and ultimately invisible. No, you don't simply want the "maximum amount of words on a page," because that would be utterly fucking illegible. Packing those words in to a compact yet legible form is where the unappreciated artistry of typography does its invisible thing. Those pages of miniscule stock quotes in the newspaper? Why you can read them without going blind? That's because of typography.