Slashdot Mirror
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 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.
that half of them have god-awful penmanship? A little bit, yes.
Writhe your naked ass to the mindless groove.
The only one of those whose writing resembles one of their fonts is Mark Simonson with his "felt tip roman" font.
The last two in TFA do have rather spiffy handwriting, though.
All caps block lettering FTW!
Nuclear engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.
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
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.
a similar article with comic book letterers.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
I've always wished my handwriting didn't suck so hard. Now I feel even worse. Thanks, Slashdot!
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
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.
the handwriting of the creators of Wingdings.
The Phrenology of Plastic Surgeons.
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
that there are so many people who are renowned for creating text... and that someone would have a "favorite." Incredible.
Anyone else notice that the typographers who either reside in the US or have resided in the US their writing is much more legible?
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...
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.
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?
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.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
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
Sigh!
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.
Am i the only one looking at this and trying to make my signature look fancier?
Where is Donald's hand writing? How can /. 'ers read this without thinking about Computer Graphic Modern, TeX and metafont?
Certainly nobody has given the concentrated study, and thought to computer typography as Donald E. Knuth.
Can be effectively used to serialize/de-serialize messages with whatever content and avoid the XML parsing overhead.
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.
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.
I would agree with the sentiment, at least for the alphabet. While I am sometimes slightly annoyed at not being able to tell the difference between barn and bam, or I and l, I don't even know what this font is called, to say nothing of trying to change it.
But it's a completely different situation when you have thousands of characters to deal with! Mika-chan hand-wrote pages full of characters, scanned them, and manually reworked them into a TTF.
Features an apostrophe that's pretty freaking huge!
http://www.themaninblue.com/articles/handwritten_typographers/images/handwriting_eduardo_thumb.jpg
Er, the typeface (unless it is really illegible) is pretty much irrelevant as far as I am concerned. Function over form. All I ever want is the maximum number of words on a screen/page so i don't have to scroll as much. Thus typesetters' creative use of white space, PDF, and web page sidebars can all go to hell. And don't get me started on the text viewers on mobile phones. Or the way magazines pay to have the layout artistically done in 50 billion colours and 60 billion DPI but cannot get the spelling or facts right. Or those kids on my DAMN lawn AGAIN.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
I'm very surprised that Ray Larabie (of Larabie Fonts fame) is not on the list. He's been the most productive font designer in the "modern internet era" (1997-today).
____
nico
Nico-Live
While a lot of typefaces are decorative, intended for use in logos and advertising, part of the function of everyday typefaces is to be able to be read quickly, and shapes and spacing of characters have a big influence over that.
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.
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 was always and still is clearly an "s" to everyone who reads it. And even my rapid-scrawl isn't anywhere near quick enough to get ideas down in time for my brain to move on to the next thing. Typing isn't perfect, but is much, much closer to my natural "thinking speed" when it comes to writing out letters. As it is, I can still type and spell/grammar check the previous paragraph without having to interrupt the flow of writing.
From working in schools, I know that the majority of handwriting is done to a school-specific style (so it's not even that we've "standardised" handwriting across schools). Handwriting-aid software typically has dialogs of configuration options because school X wants the lower case A to look like this, school Y wants it to look like that etc. And what happens when people stop "teaching" handwriting? The kids revert to their own, individual, perfectly-legible style that's much more comfortable to them. So why do we waste the time?
My mother, when I was much younger, had her first argument with the school about my handwriting. My teacher was trying to imply that I was stupid because I couldn't hand-write as neatly as the other kids, until my mother pointed out that it was because, at home, I was taught "It doesn't matter what it looks like, so long as someone else can read it." Making me sit in school at lunchtime copying hundreds of hand-written characters was a waste of time, because I was doing joined-up writing while the other kids were still on the "trace an A, then trace an N, then trace a D" phase of writing. What the school wanted was for me to join the rest of the class, having already "gone past" them. And to do it in a writing style that, trying to copy as an adult, is extremely uncomfortable and unnecessary.
Additionally, I've witnessed the slow but undeniable emphasis on computer use rather than handwriting in schools. Some of the "beacon" schools don't even use pen and paper at all any more, everything is laptops and PC's. 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. Give it another decade of two and hand-writing will become one of those ancient arts only practiced by people who bother to study it.
And in the end, that's a good thing. It's a nice skill to be able to handwrite in a legible way, but that's as far as it goes. In my own life, I handwrite about once a week or less, usually on Post-It's, or scraps of paper to sketch out ideas. 99% of the time, I'm the only person who needs to read them. Give me a Palm touchscreen that can print on Post-It's and I'd do away even with that little. Handwriting "neatly" is a waste of time, as is teaching handwriting by rote. Get the kids to the point where they can write any word and the majority of people can read it back instantly, then you're done.
Roll on the days where handwriting is a niche skill that you'll do adult-college courses in on a Sunday afternoon, and the only time you'll ever use it is to send a letter to a woman to impress her with some old fashioned romantic verse.
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?
You have no idea what I am talking about. I expanded my original point that 'the typeface (unless it is really illegible) is pretty much irrelevant as far as I am concerned' to include the typesetting as well.
I _do_ want the "maximum amount of words on a page," because when I can be bothered to reformat a load of text for my own use, I _do_just_that_ and it isn't "utterly fucking illegible" because 'the typeface (unless it is really illegible) is pretty much irrelevant'.
Is it typography that makes those miniscule stock quotes legible, or the resolution of the printing process?
50 lines of legible text in 400 vertical pixels is artistry indeed, It is the endless variations and twiddles of typography when working in much higher resolutions that are unappreciated.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
...nothing more than a huge ad for selling fonts?
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Crimeny, flamebait and troll! Well screw you, I am going to make _my_own_ typeface. With blackjack. And hookers. (would that constitute a variation or a twiddle? Damn and Blast!)
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
No James "Kibo" Parry in there? WTF. Did he retire or something?
Yeah, I'm old.
- chrish
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.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I always got a U or an S- in penmanship in grade school, mostly because my handwriting is TERRIBLE. Then again, I started using a TRS-80 Model I for everything in 1980 at the ripe old age of 5 (including learning the BASIC programming language), so I didn't have much use for pens and pencils after that.
I still attach no importance to having readable handwriting.
You can see a sample of his handwriting in an interview he did with Free Software Magazine in 2005: http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/interview_knuth
The "or else it won't" that ends the summary really bugged me. If you're going to urge people to look at something, you should at least stand by your premise for more than a sentence! Or don't.
When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? -C. Palahniuk
I've learned that to calligraph well (at least before you've absorbed it better than I have? ;)), you need to think of it as DRAWING letters (and the spaces between), rather than WRITING letters. Changing that mindset has helped me immensely when doing calligraphy. (I suspect that if I were a professional calligrapher, I'd be able to do things faster and not need to think of it as "drawing" as much.)
Ironically, my handwriting is absolute crap, but when I toggle the brain switch to calligraphy mode, it improves dramatically. The speed is cut by probably an order of magnitude, though. People that have seen my calligraphy (which, admittedly, is only amateur) are shocked, shocked to see how bad my handwriting is.
If anyone's interested in learning calligraphy, I highly recommend Mark Drogin's Medieval Calligraphy. It spends a lot of time about the history of various hands (what one might call "fonts" now), and the way they developed. If you're at all a history geek, you might love it. I know that I found it much more enjoyable than I thought I would.
Make sure that you use a dip pen, rather than one of the cartridge ones. It's a pain in the ass to re-dip every few letters, but you get a more intimate feel for what you're doing. I started with a Schaefer cartridge pen, and it was great -- but it never worked right after I replaced the ink cartridge. (The Schaefer was a great starting pen, though, I just find I enjoy using a dip pen much more.)
So how do you count diagrams and math? Much of my "handwriting" is actually chemical structure diagrams, equations, etc.
Handwriting is necessary, because "punching in" equations into a computer is a pain, and even if chemical drawing programs are reasonably useful, you can't take the laptop anywhere. There's also no better way to actually understand an equation or process than write its derivation by hand.
This isn"t normal Slashdot material, but it's definitely cool.
That said, my handwriting is atrocious. Legible, but embarrassing. It had no Oomph.
It was only after perusing the writing of a serial killer that I decided to get serious. That Erik Menendez has damn nice penmanship!
http://www.radaronline.com/from-the-magazine/2008/04/letter_to_charles_manson_richard_ramirez_ted_kacyinski_bill_4.php
So I figured if a derranged serial killer could write that well, I couldn't be far behind.
The secret, besides good practice & proper teaching, is a FOUNTAIN PEN. You know, those things they used to write the Bill Of Rights & the Constitution (that Congress is shitting on lately)? Why do you think John Hancock's name is synonymous with the word "signature"?? The man used a fountain pen (technically, those were all quill pens, but same writing style).
I went and bought a 250$ Sailor Naginata Concord nibbed Japanese fountain pen. I can fill it with any color ink I want, even homemade. And my natural writing CHANGED. It looks amazing now, and I owe it to the pen. These people probably use fountain pens in a lot of their daily writing. It really does make a world of difference, try one sometime. Just DON'T SHAKE IT!