Just came across this example of John Crowley's handwriting - it's a copy of an endorsement of a small press small-run subscription edition of one of his books. The run has Lettered, Numbered, and trade editions. The Lettered edition (very expensive and sold out) features the buyer's favorite passage from the book hand lettered by Mr. Crowley, which I thought was a nice touch. (I wonder what ink he'll use?)

I'm currently trying (when I think about it) to mould my scrawl into an everyday italic, and I thought this was pretty cool.

For those of you who use italic as your daily hand, do you use the two-stroke 'e' favoured in this example?

While I think this is a great example of a flowing, relaxed, very personalized hand, it does highlight for me some of the concerns I have about italic at speed. The regularity of the motion used in letter formation can make it difficult to distinguish some of the letters - what do you do to get around this (aside from slow down)?

Ryan.

Well, this handwriting is a great deal better than mine, but I think it's too angular -- my notion of italic includes curves as well as diagonal straight lines. The lack of curves gives it a jagged and somewhat dazzling appearance as a page, to my eyes. The chief problem for quick legibility was, on my first reading, his "l." It's not a full height letter, a lot of the time, which can lead to confusion with quite a lot of letters, esp. in such an angular hand.

Which is not to knock his handwriting -- I live in far too fragile a glass house -- but to suggest you could do better by careful attention to proper letter forms. My thought is that if you constantly practise the proper forms when you've got a bit of time, the hand will deteriorate less at speed. But perfect instant legibility is probably not a realistic goal. We have typewriters and puters for that.

Best

Michael

I think you summed it up well, Michael.

My house is equally fragile, but that hand, to me, is not attractive or legible. Sure, I can read it, but with difficulty. My scratchin' is equally ugly, but I've been told is fairly readable.

Obviously, legibility is somewhat dependant on what we learned to read in our formative years.

I'm certainly no expert myself but...

I wouldn’t say angular is the problem so much more than poor or incomplete forming of the letters.

I noticed that he has almost no "upper story" to his writing. You can see it in his lower case D, F, L, and T. Even his upper case letters are almost the same size as the lower case ones. He also has a tendency to leave some letters unfinished (you can see he doesn't appear to cross his lower case T in the word "project").
I would say both of these points are the cause of 90% of the difficulties I have when reading the text. There are some portions I can’t figure out at all.

This all shows that you can get sloppy handwriting no matter what method is used.

I do not like the style of the handwriting, but it cannot be too bad, because there is only one word I cannot decipher. The illegible word is the name of the publisher who "published a collection of my stories."

I've also been trying to make use of Italic as an everyday hand. I've improved much, but have far to go.


Edited for spelling

I pick no bones with the criticisms of the example provided - I'd say most are pretty dead on, and highlight problems I've got in my own hand when I pick up the pace. I'd love to write like Ann does and I strive for that with some of my practice, but it isn't practical for me for the everyday jotting I've got to do. Nonetheless, despite the legibility issues, what I did like about this example is that it is so clearly not 'put on'; it looks like his everyday script - he's probably got grocery lists lying around in this hand. I think that's cool.

Ryan.

ps: the publisher: Incunabula - not the most recognizable of words at the best of times!

Yes, it's clearly an everyday hand, done at some speed. But I think what we were doing was not so much picking at his handwriting, as suggesting that it could be improved, and offering pointers on what to concentrate on.

Michael

Anecdote of my most embarrassing handwriting experience, from the days when students submitted handwritten essays.

Student: Thank you for all the notes in the margin, they're very helpful, but there's one here I can't read.

Self: (Looks at tiny pencilled note in margin; holds it upside down; looks again; blushes) I'm afraid it says "I can't read your handwriting."

Right. I thought I was agreeing. :doh: Ah, the communicative power of the interweb.


Isn't that always the way?

Ryan.