Handwriting

My Hand Writing

I remember being really desperate aged 6 to be known for having neat handwriting and colouring in like other girls in my class.

Unfortunately being dyslexic, having both neat hand writing and actually writing something that made sense proved quite tricky. During my teenage years I had undecided hand writing, some times I imititated other peoples styles that I liked such as loopy swirly writing or other times flat boxy writing that I thought looked mature. Around the age of 14 my Mother paid a specialist tutor to help me with my English work and part of that included reviewing and learning a style of writing and letter formation that came naturally to me.

A sketch book page from one of my projects based on insects from University

Other People's Handwriting

Moving on, I still continue to look closely at other peoples hand writing and letter formation whether it is a scribbled note on a post it or a message in a birthday card, I love recognising other people's writing before reading their name signed at the bottom, hand writing is so much more personal that a typed email or whats app message. With my Grandma I always know it is a card from her because of her swirly old fashioned 't's' that look like 'y's'. Believe it or not for a long time I thought she was addressing me 'Yo Becky' no 'To Becky'. I confessed this to her and she found it hilarious. Convenient websites for greetings cards such as Moon Pig where it is all digital make me shudder, so impersonal and lazy yet very modern and useful. I have heard that word processing software is taking over and some people are saying that by 2050 children won't need to be taught to write... someone please tell me that is wrong. It worries me greatly.

In meetings at work I always carry a note book and scribble away, I hate hearing people say that they don't need one or they have an empty note book because they never need to write anything, or worse still taking a photo or a voice recording on a phone. I apologise I am getting ranty and perhaps this may sound horribly old fashioned.

Pens and Colours

At college one day a tutor flinched when she was looking through this girl's sketch book on my table, she stammered 'please don't write in blue biro in here, it just looks so horribly cheap...' I quickly glanced over and my gosh she was totally right, then it occurred to me I never write in blue biro always black or a fine liner of some description. I do love fountain pens and quills dipped into ink, I really do however they are so wonderfully messy and blotchy I have pretty much given up on them. I used to be a big collector of pens, gel pens in particular 'wow this pen actually smells like strawberry', 'this one is marbled'...I doodled for hours and enjoyed grouping them into colours and brand. I still like to doodle, sketch and scribble; however I am proud to say I have moved on from gel pens. Although I love a good pencil case or box filled with various pens and art utensils.

Styles of Writing and Font

Not Comic Sans, please or Joker Man. Well actually there are probably only a handful of fonts I would use. I appreciate good typography and love looking at it but on an email or word document, it looks better simple and clean, in the context of a website or a blog be more creative...

With regards to handwriting, does it show off a little bit of personality? I used to admire my Dad's neat hand writing where you could almost draw little boxes around the letters which reflected his mathematical personality, however his signature was a flamboyant loopy scribble. Then I see writing in the work place that I consider looks 'young and a bit kiddy', this is usually writing that is quite round and bubbly, not very relaxed or natural and I try not to make assumptions about the person who wrote it. Then you get the spidery tiny writing that is so hard to read, it almost makes me scream, which makes me think messy person alert. I know I should learn not to be so judgemental.

My favourite style of writing? Arty free handwriting, joined up, relaxed, loose and shows a creative flair without trying too hard, does that make sense? Is there such thing or would others argue that my preferred style of 'Arty' handwriting is messy and impractical.