One day, when I set my signature and was complaining about the nib that skipped, the person of the pen store asked me why I did it so fast.

"People often tend to write their signature fast. Why not normal, just as you write some text or even slow?"

Good question I thought!

And you, how do you set your signature? And do you have a reason for doing it fast or, on the contrary, slow.

The Legend

Faster than "normal," but not as fast as some. My wife's is unreadable. I like to be able to read signatures, so I go slow enough that it's legible, but fast enough that it doesn't lose its character. (If that makes any sense.)

Alas, my signature has gotten worse over the years. I guess I'm in too much of a hurry!

JediGamer, I can sympathize. My signature has been getting messier, less legible, less complete (I don't even make it through all four letters in the acronym of my name) and generally more disastrous the older I get. I think it has more to do with the number of times, per day, that I have to sign my name. In my most recent employment stint, I find myself signing or initialling several times per day, and thus fire through the exercise as fast as I possibly can.

Fast and illegible. For me a signature is an inimitable gesture, not something that requires readability.

Sincerely,
*#@&!%# #*(^%@$!

Fast. Very fast, and a number of my pens skip on my signature. I write notes and orders at work all day, and have to sign them several dozen times/day.

I write my signiture quickly. The only reason that I can think of is familiarity. The first thing I learned to write was my name. By now the muscles have memorized the motion and write it out fast, with little input by me.

Fast.

I typically write everything fast. University notes, signatures and story-notes especially. I do NOT do shorthand. Oh God no. I believe FIRMLY in using proper English; I just write very very fast. This includes my signatures.

This is also the reason (or one of, anyway), why I like fountain pens. With a fountain pen, I find that I have the ability to write faster for longer, without the ink skipping on me. If I tried the same thing with a ballpoint pen, either the pen would break, the paper would tear, the ink would skip more times than a needle on a warped record, or my hand would drop off from exhaustion because of the force needed to keep the ink flowing.

A signature is like DNA. It should be unique and hard to reproduce. I once knew a guy
that signed 3 times over his signature. What was left was an unreadable mess. He said it was
so that it was hard to reproduce.

I recently had a long conversation with my eccentric (but sophisticated) Aunt about signatures. She talked about her time in State Work and the difference it made to be able to read someone's signature. I have since changed mine from an illegible gesture to something at least recognizable as my name. I hope to God that I have done so without losing the "style" I felt I had in my old signature.

Normal. Very legible. As in, "I don't know why I have to print my name next to this." I was once told by someone here at work, "Dang that's an anal signature." Thank you.

I write my signature at a normal speed because I want it to be legible. I want people to know who's writin' here.

Paddler

I have a similar answer to Farace's: faster than normal but slower than fast.
I think a messy signature would be easier to fake than a legible one as it requires only a scribbled blob, whether one or three times. Writing clearly is the the highest penmanship of all.
I don't mind writing messily, in a mix of abbreviations and self-taught Gregg shorthand if I'm making notes for my own use. They meet their purpose if I can still read them up to a few days later.

Mac

It has always seemed strange to me that some sign their name with unrecognized lines!

Faster than normal, but slower than a scribble. I've worked in a bit of flourishing to it, so the speed needs to be there to keep those parts neat, consequently I've also lost the 'r' and the 's' from my last name, while my first name comes out decently.

Click to view attachment

I don't understand the scribble-like signatures either, so I made a point to make mine at least vaguely recognizable.

I will post you my signature written by the left hand and the right hand, I write in russian letters my signature. I sign fast.

Fast. Much too fast to be legible. Like others here, I've lost whole letters. The last letter of my last name is a "y", and as often as not there's not even a visible descender. Also, I'm a "Junior", but I'm inconsistent about adding the "Jr". When I do, it looks like a lopsided, elongated "2", which makes a certain sort of sense.

I'm of two minds about whether it should just be unique and identifiable or actually legible. I'm trying to slow down some, though.

Oh, hey look! Hundredth post. Man, I've been spending a lot of time around here this summer.

Not fast or slow but in a generally sloppy manner

I'd say normal, or normal to fast, possibly. My signature has developed over many years and is completely illegible, comprising my three forename initials (generous parents...... ) in the first part and just a sweeping line for my surname (which actually has 8 letters - none of which are at all distinguishable). It is undoubtedly an important test for any new pen I buy how well it performs on the 'signature test'

I've developed the bad habit of two signatures: one that is legible when I care about the recipient, the other fast and illegible for the bank or the government. There is also a third "initialling" signature which I don't really count for corrections to contracts or where there have to be signed page by tedious page.

Yep, agree. The signature test is very important. I write my "good" signature with lots of loopy, vertical lettering, so it's also a good test of skipping in a fountain pen, as I've discovered.

Yes, I've got one of those too - takes just a second to do - but is in fact the first part of my usual signature with the first letter of my surname - although again, you wouldn;t recognise it as such......

I write my signature like I write my university notes. If I don't write so fast it can't be understood, it means I really love the recipient.
Actually I have two signatures. One is my full name, and the other one is my first name and the initials of my middle name and surname.

Fast but readable!
I like mine to be not to easy to copy, but also still readable.
Because I have to put it down over 50 times an afternoon sometimes it has to be fast.
But on the other hand I like to let people know I put my name there.

I do that. It's because I don't like my last name. My first name is more legible.

Signatures should be symbols that stand for a person. Thus, for me, its legibility is irrelevant - it should be unique and hard to reproduce. There is this insistence on legibility in the English-speaking world that does not necessarily exist in other cultures. I love the way some Spaniards and Latin Americans sign - all swirls and often complex signs. As a historian, I don't care about legibility of the signature - in important cases I can recognize it simply because it is a unique design. And that's really neat. I wish I could write like that - but I've tried and I can't. So my signature remains relatively legible, though most people don't recognize my middle name, which is pretty uncommon in the English (or Spanish-) speaking world.

Erick

I voted 'fast' because I normally sign quickly and sloppy. If it is something important I take my time and write slower.

Very fast and no its not readable !! Think its the most scribbled thing I do when testing a new 'toy'

I voted fast. I am trying to slow it down but keep the way it looks as I like it.

I sign very fast, and very cursively. The first word is usually recognisable as my first name, but the second kind of merges together into something like a flourish. I don't have a middle name, incidentally.

I used to have two signatures, because for years I worked in a large bookshop and would have to sign (initial) things dozens of times a day. My second signature was my initials with a big flourish on the last one which wrapped around the whole thing. Sort of 'initials in a circle' but done as one continuous line. Completely unreadable, but it was repeatable and people knew who it belonged to - and I could initial every page of a 20-page despatch note very quickly!