WHY MY HANDWRITING SUCKS? : A TYPOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS

UPDATE : My long overdue app Handwrite Me which prompted me to write this piece is finally available for download for iOS. You can visit the website at handwriteme.com.au or download the app directly here.

THE WHY ?

In today’s TECHNOLOGICAL world the need to write ( writing using a pen, not typing ) has reduced drastically. In fact I can’t remember the last time I wrote ( the samples show in this post do not count ). I am sure the last time I wrote I did it as a novelty. I did it because I was penning down something that held a certain value to me or maybe I just thought that actually writing it down will make me feel more connected to it. Even as I type down the word “writing” the first thought that comes to my mind is actually typing on a keyboard. Whenever I have to write something down I use a KEYBOARD. Sometimes it is an actual physical keyboard and other times its digital equivalent on the PHONE. Taking notes while listening to lectures, writing in my journal ( which is an APP ) , writing down ideas, etc everything happens on a SCREEN using mostly similar typeface ( more on difference between a typeface and a font later ). So why this sudden interest in handwriting?

Being a lazy programmer I decided that the next project that I can have fun with can be creating your own handwriting typeface and just type in your handwriting using a keyboard. So I picked up the book “Thinking with Type” and started working on an app which allows the user to send messages in their handwriting. The app is chugging along slowly but I know a lot more about typefaces than I used to and the above mentioned book has been invaluable. All this preface brings me to this post. I thought it would be fun to analyse my own pathetic handwriting from the point of view of a designer and actually point out why it sucks. So here goes.

THE BASICS

Keeping it simple lets define the basics and ponder how I can improve upon them.

This is the “main” line on which all the text rests. Ideally it would be used for alignment of one letter to the next. Clearly as we can see from the picture I do not understand the concept of baseline with some ( most ? ) of the characters hovering over it. Does not make for a pretty sight.

This is the height from the baseline to the top of the lowercase characters. From the looks of it, x-height may look like half of the Cap Height ( which we will get to in a second) but that varies with each “typeface” ( typeface is the style of the characters, font is the medium through which it is delivered ) and significantly alter the appearance of the type. Due to my already discussed deviance from the baseline the x-height of my characters is all over the place.

The part of some characters that dangles from the baseline constitutes the descender and its length is the descender height. Looking at my handwriting the length of my descenders seems pretty consistent but their placement not so much.

As the name suggests cap height is the height of the top of the UPPERCASE letters from the baseline. It can be less or more than twice the x-height. It is not the same as the height of the ascender ( the part of some characters that rises above the x-height). The letter “T” being the only uppercase letter in the example there is not much to go on here but looking at other absurdities in my handwriting the cap height is the least of my worries.

The width of the letter plus a minuscule space on its either side is known as the set width. Clearly the set width of my characters is all over the place with some being squshd tgther, hardly any room to breath while others sprawling out in wi de ex p an s e. Along with aligning my handwriting to a baseline having a consistent set width will go a long way in “improving” my handwriting.

THE MAKEOVER

After having gone through the basics of what constitutes a typeface and why my handwriting is not that great I decided to try and fix it. The image above was the result. It is the same text with the mentioned tweaks applied. The jury is out on whether it actually looks any better or there is hardly any noticeable difference. My initial reaction is that it does a look a little more neat. But one thing that I can surely state is that there is a certain beauty in looking at your handwriting on a digital medium. They blend together beautifully and that is what I will be/am doing with my new app which will be released soon.

Check out some apps that I built :

https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1659363738?pt=66324801&ct=medium&mt=8