Here's the sample, and a translation below:

Click to view attachment

This is my normal handwriting. It's fast, it's not completely illegible, but it's not winning any prizes, either. Often I have trouble distinguishing my u's & n's or my v's & r's. [arrows from clearer letters]

[cursive]
I haven't written in cursive since junior high, I don't think. Man, it's slow! Some of the letters I really ha% have to reach way back there to remember how to make them. R's and S's especially, whether upper- or lower-case. Some of the connectors don't come to me right away either. It's tough to write "write" becaurs^* because of the "wr". That awkward, as is ending with the pen on the basef baselur baseline when the ternu terminal letter is "r" [cursive]. (as opposed to "r" [printed])
[/cursive]

Criminy, that was like slow torture. I didn't time how long that cursive paragraph took, but it was long.

Anyway, once upon a time I took a bunch of drafti^ design drawing courses with plenty of lettering involved, so I have a pretty good idea of what I want my writing to look like. Should I just carefully make up my own exemplar, or what? The "From ZigZags to Writing" matrial is not too far from what I hope to achieve, and I could probably adapt techniques from there, I think, maybe.

Cursive will have to wait.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

LAMY 200 XF, NOODLER'S BLACK on CLAIREFONTAINE


OK, so that's it. Any feedback is appreciated, thanks.

--Breck

edit: P.S. Jeez, in the future I will resize my photos before attaching/posting them.

Well, I'm afraid I'm not going to be very constructive. Both forms of handwriting are very clear and legible. The cursive is very close to an exemplar of "Palmer Cursive," so I suspect you're taking things slow. Unless you have some strong need to write cursive, I suggest you go ahead and work on your print (not that it needs much, if any, work).

I think what you've got there is more than fine. I don't think it's any less "attractive" then some more ornate examples I've seen that are frankly much less legible. Add the fact that you say you can write this way quickly and I'd say why bother with cursive?

I would do as you have suggested for yourself - just practise making the shapes you have seen that you like. As the others have said at the end of the day your current script is easily readable and not unattractive giving a distinct personality.

As somebody who has taken the design courses however it is nice to be able to pull something different out of the hat when the mood takes you. This is what I have done over the years and I know have maybe 5 or 6 styles of writing that I can use at a good daily speed for notetaking etc depending on mood and pen being used. I have to say in a real speed rush it does naturally revert to a made up cursive which sprawls across the page getting bigger and bigger the faster I go but it is still readable so i cant complani.

Have fun with it - I have often tried to follow writing charts to conform to certain styles that catch my eye but whether its the rebel or the creative soul in me I never quite get it down and my own little quirky habits maintin themselves. Now I just pick the best of certain styles and jumble em all up til I get something I like the look of!!

Thanks all for your comments. I am simply going to try to improve my basic style here without many changes, just to increase legibility and speed. Letter size and spacing seem to need about the same amount of tweaking as form consistency. I'm practicing with this customizable guideline generator (mentioned elsewhere) to help with that, and there's already some improvement.

Cursive is just something I thought I'd try for fun, and to try to make my signature more legible. As it stands now, my sig doesn't even have enough humps to actually be representing all the letters in my name. It'll do for now, but it would be nice to have some skill and speed at cursive again someday.

Thanks again,

Breck

Your both samples are clear and very legible. I like your handwriting.