designer handwriting

I remember back in day, classes in university to develop our “designer” handwriting (uppercase italic, natch.), along with all those fancy arrows and callout, and practicing daily.

i write now with a sort of mutation of this, upper case italic with almost a script like connection between letters and forms. i cant for the life of me remember how to write in proper script, and only use lowercase for things like emails, etc.

i never really thought of it, until someone commented on it while showing my portfolio, saying how much they like it and would love to turn it into a font.

i’d like to start a thread to look at other examples of “designer” handwriting… write out the sample text below (or another of your choice), scan and post it up. examples of famous designer writing also welcomed (anyone have examples of eames, lowey, etc. writing?).

“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

12345678890

would also be curious to see examples of designer signatures. ive seen quite a few interesting ones…

i dunno if its a good thing or bad, but i actually really enjoy handwriting like this. i live for the days i need to fill out surveys, write notes on a sketch, etc… i now have a full wall blackboard in my studio and look forward to the time once a week when i get to erase everything and rewrite it! OCD, perhaps… :wink:

here’s mine to kick it off,

R

in architectural school we had to write 5-8 page essays/reports in freehand, architectual-style. my handwriting is a bastardization of that, combined with being a southpaw.

(name withheld to protect the innocent)

Fascinating…Please find attached
Handwriting.jpg

oh, i forgot to add…unlike my typing, i never write in lower case anymore.

Classes in writing like a designer? That’s a new one to me. My art teacher in school (as in from the age of 12) used to get me to do calligraphy all the time, and as a result I have the most pointlessly ornate (and mostly illegible) handwriting. I’ll post some up with I have time.

well OK, it wasnt a full course or anything, but a set of exercises in Studio. at least a full 2 hours if i remember correctly!

nice to see some examples from others… keep 'em coming!

R

Very interesting thread.

No formal design training as of yet, though I did adopt the all-caps writing style a couple of years ago mainly because my script was getting so illegible I was starting to have a rough time reading it.

I had to practice both in drafting class in highschool and in college.
hand.jpg

I notice a couple things when I look at my writing in this context:

  1. I must have had my right foot in a hole when I wrote this
  2. Just as I suspected, my writing gets lazy after about 30 microseconds of writing.

I was taught in highschool drafting but I’ve alway had messy handwriting, unable to color in the lines, etc… I’m very heavy handed and almost carve my letters into everything. If I’ve been writing for a while I get into a zone and the whole page looks nice, like some weave pattern even though the individual words may not be that legible. I’ve had 1 person say I write like a doctor and one other designer said my writing was nice and looked like it belonged on parchment. I have good days and bad.

keep 'em coming!

great to see the diversity! I’m a big typophile and find the cross over from a designer’s style and training to writing is fascinating. I was even thinking of how cool it would be to make a book out of this… write a letter to famous designers, have them write back…! (TM/copyright on the idea, 2008 Richard Kuchinsky). ha!

R

wow i didn’t realize the all capital italic look was a designer thing…just kind of happened for me. I can’t really switch to lowercase easily like you guys can

good point. i wonder where the capital letter thing started. any budding typographic historians out there who can shed any light on it?

R

thought it was an architecture thing…back in the drafting days, with guide lines.
S25C-108031109240.jpg

Never seemed to take on the designer Handwriting. Any others out ther like me?

i wouldn’t say mine is super ‘designerly’ …i’m not patient enough.

Ill cough some up when I get home tonite, until then, does anyone else have a problem starting out writting all caps, then unintentionally switching to lowercase. Or starting out printing and then suddenly intermingling cursive? When I fill out forms its always a struggle to stick to one of those four options.

Anyone with sloppy handwriting like me, you would be surprised how much it helps to get one of those hand grip excersizers. Ive always had a problem with my hands shaking, especially since I broke my wrist, but the grip thing is really helping that. Also practicing with a mechanical pencil that is slightly over extended helps you to ease up on the pressure, Those hints are more for the newb’s.

I don’t always write in all caps, usually a mixture, like carton mentioned.

I could never hold a baseline, even with guidlines, my letters “float”
hw.jpg

I might redo this later. It’s pretty awful.
handwriting_RJ.jpg