This thesis studies the cultural meaning of hand­writing from the beginning of its coexistence with the printed word until now.

Over time, handwriting has been understood as a signifier of authenticity, social class and gender, as a tool for maintaining social order and building character and as a way of disciplining mind and body.

While working through the evolving conceptions of the medium in the face of changing technologies, value systems and concepts of the self, this text also explores the tension between handwriting as a representation of individuality and the imitation of standard models that it requires. In particular it focuses on how deviations from the standard model are interpreted as meaningful across various contexts.

Disclaimer: This thesis focuses on the Latin alphabet and works through a selective history, exploring primarily examples from Europe, England and the United States. This is done to allow for a more in-depth exploration within the constraints of the paper’s length.

Writing is not natural. It is a technology that facilitates “the reduction of dynamic sound to quiescent space, the separation of the word from the living present, where alone spoken words can exist.”¹ It is an acquired skill “governed by consciously contrived, articulable rules.”² It requires these rules for otherwise it could not fulfil its communicative function. Without them, the receiver could not decode by reading what the sender has encoded in writing. Thus, all writing requires a standard model. In print and typed writing this model is already set, waiting only to be arranged in a decodable order. But for one to acquire the skill of handwriting they first have to learn to replicate that standard model (fig. 1). Nevertheless, immediately after that process is completed or—arguably—as it is happening, the standard model becomes uniquely deformed by the individual that is executing it (fig. 2) (fig. 3). Consequently, handwriting toes the line between individuality and conformity (fig. 4).³

This balancing act is oftentimes interpreted as the individual inscribing themselves in the writing. Even though writing is not an utterance that “well(s) up out of the unconscious,”⁴ it is still gestural. It can be interpreted as “a gesture which lies somewhere between drawing and conceptual thinking.”⁵ In handwriting the body acts as a bridge between thought and the written manifestation of that thought. Compared to print, it thus lessens the displacement of an expression from the living present because it still bears reference to the embodied conscience that produced it at a unique moment in time. This quality gives way to the commonly held, arguably intuitive assumption that handwriting reveals something other than what is written about the individual that produced it. The unique standard deviations in someone’s handwriting are read as additional information that is being transmitted, beyond what the letters themselves denote.

To reveal of course implies a passive, involuntary gesture that is discovered. But as our own experiences with writing tell us, it is possible to deliberately affect this gesture. In fact, an essential quality that separates the handwritten word from the typed one is, figuratively speaking, an increased range of motion. Compared to the rigidly enforced, consistently straight left-to-right movement of typing, handwriting is a medium that provides an autonomous form of (self-) expression and self-presentation.

What the continued comparison with speech, printed and typed writing hints at, is that handwriting, like all things, gets its meaning(s) in and through its difference from other forms of communication. For example, a handwritten letter is received differently from an electronic text message and handwritten annotations communicate differently from printed margin notes. While the medium of handwriting is a message that takes on meaning through a system of differences, instances of handwriting become meaningful through how they differ from the standard model they are derived from, which in turn is again a defining characteristic of the medium itself. The exploration of these relationships is at the heart of this text. They mark the point of departure for an investigation into how handwriting’s meaning and role changes in relation to new technologies and how standard deviations in handwriting are read as meaning-producing forms across various contexts.

The first chapter of this text begins this exploration by providing two historical examples. Chapter 2 weaves together examples from popular culture with historical context and chapter 3 discusses handwriting’s meaning in the digital age.

The invention of the printing press did not end the profession of the scribe.⁶ It did, nevertheless, create the profession of the writing master.⁷ Facing a decreased demand for their services, those that were skilled in the art of writing began travelling around Europe, teaching penmanship to others. Next to classes and tutoring they began using the technology of the printing press for producing books to spread their lessons. As literacy was growing, so was the need for written communication and written records in administration and commerce.⁸ Thus, writing was no longer only practiced by a few but rather became an essential commercial skill for many. “Whoever would be a Man of Business, must be a Man of Correspondence,” proclaimed Thomas Watts in 1722.⁹

While merchants and clerks, those that depended on their ability to write well, were not poor, they also were not nobility. This coupled with the perception of handwriting as a mechanical skill meant that writing masters came to be thought of as craftspeople. An association that many of them were eager to avoid. Their publications therefore presented writing as something both useful and beautiful, as a necessary skill for the man of business and as one of the fine arts. Despite their efforts, the image of writing as manual labour was so dominant that there were instances of both French and English aristocrats purposefully cultivating messy, illegible writing styles to distinguish themselves from the humble who had to work with their hands.¹⁰ English nobility “despised the mechanical dexterity of writing a fine hand”. Illegibility in correspondences was considered a sign of sophistication.¹¹ An example of this is a translation being identified as having been done by Elizabeth I. by means of the “idiosyncratic” nature of the handwriting. John-Mark Philo, the researcher who discovered this, states “For the queen, comprehension is somebody else’s problem.”¹² This marks an early instance of a deliberate deviation from the standard models to communicate something other than what was written.

Despite the perception of handwriting as a technical skill, with time it came to be regarded as an essential part of human identity.¹³ Keith Thomas quotes Richard Steele as proclaiming that those who are unable to read and write were “scarce to be recognized among rational creatures”.¹⁴ Discussing the case of early modern England, Keith goes on to argue, that while it is questionable that literacy did much to undermine the existing social order, an “unequal spread of literacy…gave a new cultural dimension to social differences previously founded on wealth and power”—reinforcing an existing social hierarchy.¹⁵

Nevertheless, recognizing a connection between literacy and power meant that those intent on maintaining control had to find ways of regulating how literacy was transmitted, exercised and perceived—to keep it from developing into a potentially destabilising factor.¹⁶

Perhaps one the most alien methods of controlling literacy was how the perception of what was being written was regulated through the appearance of the writing. By the 16th and 17th century an extensive range of hands was being taught. Each of which was assigned to a form of correspondence or a social class. Precisely what connotation each script had is a complex history and varies from country to country.¹⁷

Still, to understand how this system worked, one can take a look at Billingsley’s manual, The Pens Excellencie from 1618, where he focuses on the six common hands written in England at the time. The secretary hand, for instance, was used for “all manner of business”.¹⁸ The roman hand—which Schulz mentions is oftentimes referred to as the Italian hand¹⁹—was designated for women. Billingsley writes:

It is conceived to be the easiest hand that is written with Pen, and to be taught in the shortest time: Therefore it is usually taught to women, for as much as they (having not the patience to take any great pains, besides phantasticall [sic] and humor­some [sic]) must be taught that which they may instantly learn? otherwise they are uncertain of their proceedings, because their minds are (upon light occasion) easily drawn from the first resolution.²⁰

What on the surface level appears to be an ancient brand of sexism reveals precisely how the meaning of handwriting was controlled and regulated. To maintain existing social hierarchies, the writing of women had to be somehow less than/not equal. This system allowed a literate person to judge the importance of a piece of writing simply based on its appearance, preventing any possible mis­un­der­stand­ings of status.²¹

Following the invention of the printing press, new uses of handwriting emerged and increasingly more people needed to acquire the skill of writing. While a system of standard handwriting models, where each one was meaningful, because it was assigned to a specific occupation or social class, might seem arcane from a present-day perspective, the idea of communicating something through the execution of the standard model persists—as the next chapter will show.

What does it mean to have beautiful handwriting?

In Spencerian penmanship, the dominant writing system in 19th century America, writing was conceptualised as moral and spiritual reform. A process of character formation through conscious will.²² Consequently, writing instructors asserted that the appearance of a fine hand signalled to the world that its author was a man of character—a diligent and self-disciplined person—someone who could be trusted. Thus, illustrating the Victorian’s concept of character as an inner reality that is demonstrated to through outward appearances. An anxiety that resulted from this conception of handwriting as self-presentation was the possibility of outward appearance being used to deceive. What if the outer reality was not consistent with the inner?²³

At the turn of the century, Spencerian, and especially Copperplate script—of which Spencerian was derived—had been largely replaced by simpler, more efficient styles of writing. However, due their continued use in visual culture, they did not disappear, as the following examples will show.

Rosemary’s Baby opens with the eerie sound of echoing piano keys. The Paramount logo fades, and Manhattan’s cityscape appears, ornate script in bright pink placed on top (fig. 5). Mia Farrow’s singing voice nestles itself against ambiguous instrumentation, as the reassuringly familiar, candy-coloured writing continues to spell out the opening credits. There is a hypnotic dissonance between the text layer and the audio and image layers that is felt immediately. One can sense that what the appearance of the letters promises is only a surface, entirely unrepresentative of what lingers underneath.

Rosemary’s Baby was released in 1968 and is considered a landmark in the horror genre. In what Carstensen describes as “reflecting the collapse of commonly accepted metanarratives such as religion and the American nuclear family”, it explores the evil lurking beneath the surface of everyday life.²⁴ The use of script in the title sequence functions as that surface. It is used to help construct an outer reality before the viewer that appears romantic. David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) employs a similar mechanism where elegant script acts as representation of the idyllic exterior of suburbia (fig. 6). Further examples of this typographic dissonance can be found in Lady in the Lake (1947), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) (fig. 7), and more recently Queen of Earth, (2015) (fig. 8).²⁵

Among other things, these title cards exist in reference to other cultural products like movies of Hollywood’s golden era such as My Fair Lady (1964) (fig. 9), An American in Paris (1951) (fig. 10), or An Affair to Remember (1957). In these instances, the image of a handwriting style—that already in the 1950s had not been practiced for decades—evokes a sense of nostalgia, a longing for an idealized version of a different time and its traditions.

The Victorians mythologised beautiful handwriting by interpreting it as a sign of moral virtue. In many movies of old Hollywood, the use of a largely extinct script creates a romantic impression of a bygone time, providing an escape from the present. Here, beautiful handwriting is used to mythologise the past. Rosemary’s Baby and Blue Velvet on the other hand play with and subvert positive connotations, by using script to represent myths about domesticity and suburbia that are subsequently deconstructed. Arguably, all of the aforementioned applications of script in film make use of the deceptive potential of beautiful handwriting that the Victorian’s had already recognized.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971) by Hunter S. Thompson is a “semi-fictional account of his time covering an off-road desert race in Las Vegas—while tripping on LSD and contemplating the death of the American Dream.”²⁶ On the cover, the book’s title is scratched into the desert sky. The letters are irregular, full of ink splotches and altogether unruly (fig. 11). It is clear that this writing represents a drunk, depraved, non-conforming individual.

But what conceptions about handwriting and the self are necessary for the viewer to be able to interpret these letters as such?

Although thought to be a signifier of authenticity and originality, a person’s handwriting has to be developed from a standard model to fulfil its communicative functions. Consequently, handwriting finds itself firmly lodged between individuality and conformity. It follows that the subject of individuality in handwriting has been a highly contested arena where the role of mind, body and soul have been negotiated.

In the centuries following the invention of the printing press, handwriting was generally understood as a representation of one’s occupation and status in society. Skilful imitation of the standard model it derived from was largely the only quality upon which it was evaluated. It was the romantics who first proposed a different conception of handwriting at the start of the 19th century, by beginning to interpret it as an unconscious gesture—one that escaped from within the writer revealing their innermost self. To them, a distinctive, even eccentric handwriting style signified an exceptional individual—someone who had liberated themselves from the conformity of the masses and had resisted the unifying cultural forces of the time. The belief that the genius of an exceptional person could not be grasped by means of rational analysis meant that this form of handwriting analysis was mostly devoid of scientific rigor.²⁷ This is exemplified by Edgar Allan Poe’s handwriting analysis, where he used impressionistic language to capture the spirit residing in the autographs of fellow writers (fig. 12). Mr Halleck’s hand, for instance, was “strikingly indicative of his genius. We see in it some force, more grace, and little of the picturesque.”²⁸ This continued emphasis on exceptionality meant that this was a concept of unique individuality. It is here were the field of graphology, which emerged in the second half of the 19th century, differed most.

Where the romantics attributed individuality only to a few, the graphologists focused on the common person. To them, all handwriting was unique and could therefore be dissected to reveal the personality of any individual.²⁹ Working from the assumption “that the exterior body will be an exact (visible) replica of the (invisible) interior ‘spirit,’”³⁰ graphologists aimed to create a picture of a person’s inner reality through meticulous, systematic analysis of even the most minute details. From the slope, size and spacing of the letters to the relative angle of the lines—every aspect revealed something (fig. 13) (fig. 14).³¹ They argued, even if someone attempted to alter their handwriting, they could only change what they were aware of and would end up revealing themselves in the small details. Early graphology therefore provided reassurance to anxious Victorians by offering a method of exposing the true self of duplicitous strangers.³²

Regardless of their motives, both the romantics and the graphologists worked with handwriting’s embodied nature. What penmanship pedagogy showed, was that because handwriting is embodied, it can be used to govern bodies.

In Spencerian script, the initial conceptualisation of handwriting as a tool for shaping one’s character can be understood as a technology of the self, which, as Foucault described it, “permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality.³³ But ultimately, both Spencerian and the Palmer Method, which replaced it at the turn of the century as the dominant writing system in America, used handwriting as a technology of power.

While both methods had interpreted schools as a site of reformation, assimilation and training in conformity, they aimed to achieve their ends with different means. 19th century penmanship instruction had emphasised the development of conscious will to overcome lower urges. The Palmer Method mostly disregarded conscious will and reinterpreted writing as a merely physiological process. Through endless repetition of so-called drills, writing would become automatic and efficient while also functioning as a disciplinary tool (fig. 15) (fig. 16).³⁴ As Foucault explains: “Time penetrates the body and with it all the meticulous controls of power.”³⁵ Students would “appreciate…that they must follow with military precision the directions of the leader.”³⁶ If they did not do so, they would fail.³⁷ By creating obedient student bodies, writing instruction served as a catalyst for instilling conformity with social norms at large (fig. 17). Consequently, digressions from the standard model were interpreted as a form of social deviance.³⁸

Palmer’s monopoly on the second of the three R’s³⁹ in American education was not uncontested. In fact, by the dawn of the 20th century, academics voiced their criticism over penmanship’s unscientific approach. While the two groups agreed that writing was an automatism developed through repetition—rather than an unconscious gesture revealing the inner self—they differed in their assessment of individuality. Academics expected variation among individuals, penmanship instruction reluctantly acknowledged it. But the academic concept of variation was not a graphological idea of granular differences, rather it was a system of comparison. Here, deviations from the standard could be used to place students on a bell curve. Uniqueness, necessary for dividing between good and bad, served as part of a hierarchical system (fig. 18) (fig. 19).⁴⁰

If anything, this overview of handwriting at the turn of the 20th century provides one thing: What graphologists, romantics, penmanship instructors and academics read in the standard deviation of handwriting varied greatly. But ultimately, they all judged it. They all derived information from it and used that information to make a value-based judgements about the subject that produced it.

In Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (2012) twelve-year-old Sam Shakusky meets twelve-year-old Suzy Bishop, and they become pen pals. For their correspondence, the film assigns seemingly rational and practical handwriting to Sam (fig. 20) and more decorated and amenable handwriting to Suzy (fig. 21). These qualities are repeated in the stationary itself. In their writing, the two characters are stereotypically distinguished along gender lines.

Arguably, the origin of these visual codes can be located in the modernist conception of the ornament. In 1892, Theodore L. De Vinne described masculine printing as “noticeable for its readability, for its strength and absence of useless ornament” and feminine printing as “noticeable for its delicacy, and for the weakness which always accompanies delicacy, as well as for its profusion of ornament.”⁴¹ De Vinne’s assertions precisely illustrate modernism’s perspective on the ornament and its relation to the feminine. One, where, as Negrin states, “the devaluation of ornament” means “at the same time, a dismissal of the feminine as inferior.”⁴²

How these notions transferred over to handwriting can be understood through how the perception of the aforementioned Spencerian script began to change towards the end of the 19th century. While Spencerian was specifically aimed at creating men of character, with time, it became commonly associated with stereotypically feminine qualities. In a posthumous text, its creator Platt R. Spencer is described as “femininely subtle” and his nature as “emotional and sympathetic.” Spencerian consisted of “graceful lines and curves” that were “pure and chaste and beautiful.”⁴³ A stylistic variation of Spencerian, referred to as Ornamental script further contributed to this association by creating a link between the male “discipline” of handwriting and the female “pastime” of ornamental, decorative arts.⁴⁴

I want pure colours, melting clouds, accurately drawn details, a sunburst above a receding road with the light reflected in furrows and ruts, after rain. And no girls.

—Vladimir Nabokov

These two sentences constitute what Vladimir Nabokov originally envisioned for the cover of Lolita. The first version of the book, published in 1955 by Olympia Press had a green, purely typographic cover instead (fig. 22).

Lolita is the story of Humbert Humbert, a French literature professor who becomes obsessed with twelve-year-old Dolores Haze, kidnaps and sexually abuses her. Described as “deeply disturbing and insanely clever”, as striking with “darkness and brutality”, Nabokov’s most famous novel, in all its depth and complexity, makes the design of a cover that captures the richness of its contents a near impossibility.⁴⁵ It follows that the covers of Lolita have been an object of great, warranted scrutiny.

Duncan White argues “Lolita has been repeatedly misread on the cover of Lolita, and frequently in a way to make her seem a more palatable subject of sexual desire.”⁴⁶ “Lolita, translated into the language of popular culture, means a sexy little number, a sassy ingénue, a bewitching adolescent siren.”⁴⁷ Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 filmic adaption of the book is possibly to blame for this. The soon iconic image (fig. 23) of Sue Lyon “peering over heart-shaped sunglasses while seductively licking a red lollipop”, “betrays the nature of the child featured in its pages.”⁴⁸

It is the power of the image that pushes the importance of the use of handwriting on Lolita’s covers to the peripheral. But especially when the image layer remains abstract or ambiguous, the use of handwriting needs closer examination.

In Emmanuel Polanco’s design, submitted in the context of a book cover competition, the handwriting spelling out Lolita is a representation of Dolores Haze as she is (fig. 24). It is the crudeness of the writing, the disproportionate, scratchy and undeveloped execution of the letters that reminds one of the child that wrote them. This is done thoughtfully. The two L’s, the i and the a are written in print script, the script that children acquire first. Whereas the o and t are constructed according to the cursive style of writing which is taught soon after. The mix of scripts, the combination of upper- and lowercase letters and the disjointedness signal the writing of a child that has gone through the process of acquiring both methods in elementary school and has now discarded consistency in both—to continue writing as it pleased. In short, a child roughly the age of Dolores Haze.

In one of the book’s chapters Lolita writes in lipstick on a mirror. This is referenced and simultaneously repurposed as a phallic symbol in a 1994 poster of the Kungliga Teatern, Stockholm. Once again, the type of script and the execution of it act as a clear reference to the age of Dolores Haze (fig. 25).

Lolita’s pop cultural status means that its covers are not only read in relation to its content but also in relation to each other. Take the cover of the 1997 Vintage International edition (fig. 26). Here Lolita is written in elegant, refined script. This handwriting is standardized, it is stereotypically feminine and stereotypically associated with the romantic and the seductive. Like the depicted lips, it is suggestive. It is well developed and very intentional, knowing and conscious of being perceived. Its author is unclear. Is this a signature or a second image providing a clue to the book’s contents? Possibly, it is not even supposed to be perceived as having been written at all.

Handwriting is commonly regarded as a “unique and authentic ‘signature’ that claims to guarantee the presence of an individual writer during a historically unique moment of writing.”⁴⁹ This claim to authenticity has been challenged fundamentally by 20^th century technologies of mechanical and electronic reproduction.⁵⁰ There is now the possibility of (re)producing handwriting in any number of ways, many of which can seem deceptively authentic. For the purposes of this text, this will be referred to as synthetic handwriting—disembodied writing, not in need of an individual writer producing it at a unique moment in time.

Motivations behind the creation and use of synthetic handwriting vary. For instance, around 1800, Henri Maillardet built the “Draughtsman-Writer,” a self-operating machine that recreates not only the result but also the process of handwriting by mechanical means (fig. 27). It can produce three poems (French and English) and four drawings, making it the machine with the largest memory of its kind (fig. 28).⁵¹ Arguably, the driving force behind its creation was curiosity—how do you replicate the complex, organic gesture of writing mechanically? On the other hand, Adobe Acrobat allows one to sign multiple contracts with a single image of one’s signature, which is faster, more practical and overall, less tedious than having to go through the process of printing, signing and scanning.

With technological advancements, increasingly complex and sophisticated instances of synthetic handwriting appear. Some of which only attempt to create a convincing image, whereas others try to recreate handwriting in its entirety. In The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Walter Benjamin argues that even perfect reproductions lack one element—a “presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be”. What is lost in the process of reproduction is the “aura” of the artwork.⁵² To be convincing, synthetic handwriting has to somehow imitate handwriting’s aura of authenticity.

To define this aura of authenticity, José van Dijck and Sonja Neef propose three parameters by which handwriting differs from non-auratic typed writing. Singularity—According to Nelson Goodman, the authenticity of a piece of typed writing is not pulled into question when it is reproduced. On the other hand, even an exact copy of a painting is considered a forgery.⁵³ Like paintings, handwriting’s essential characteristic is that it is unique. Even though it is based on a repeatable standard model, no two pieces of writing look alike. Individuality—We all write differently. Handwriting thus refers to an “un-exchangeable individual” assuring one that a unique writer was present during a unique moment of writing. Materiality—The movement, speed and pressure of the writing tool leave a unique mark on the surface they are inscribing. Handwriting’s materiality acts as further indexical proof of an origin at a specific moment in time.⁵⁴

Handwriting’s meaning within various contexts is in many ways dependent on its Aura of authenticity. It can signify care when its perceived value lies in the effort and time taken to write something by hand. A handwritten letter is a labor of love that values its receiver. It can create a sense of proximity by facilitating an encounter between writer and reader. Author’s manuscripts, littered with annotations act as proof of an important, unique individual having held this artifact at a moment in time, making it feel authentic and scarce.⁵⁵

When the seemingly unique gesture of handwriting is revealed as having been automated, its intended meaning becomes compromised. Thus, synthetic handwriting challenges not only handwriting’s claim to authenticity but also affects our beliefs about what handwritten artifacts signify.⁵⁶ It contests handwriting’s value in the same way in which AI alters, for instance, the teacher’s relationship with the literary production of students.

This can be understood by looking at autopen technology. First introduced in the 1930s, autopen technology allows individuals to sign documents without having to be physically present. Once provided with a sample signature, a mechanical arm—powered by an electric motor—moves a pen across the paper to reproduce the signature (fig. 29). It does so convincingly enough, that a layperson cannot discern whether a machine or a human produced the handwriting.⁵⁷ Its use by politicians and celebrities—those that are required to produce their signature multiple times a day—is well documented. However, this practice is often kept secret, due to criticism regarding its perceived lack of authenticity.⁵⁸ Besides having caused legal controversy, autopen signatures are generally valued less, both economically and sentimentally. Their application is often interpreted as breach of a social contract.⁵⁹

For instance, in 2004 it was discovered that US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld had used autopen technology to sign condolence letters to the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. He faced visceral public backlash as a result.⁶⁰ “The efficiency was antithetical to the meaning of the task at hand: The labor of hand signing the letters was precisely what gave them significance.”⁶¹ In this instance handwriting’s role as signifier of care was destabilized by an act of automation.

Autopen technology reproduces a singular, unchanging image. Albeit convincing, especially early iterations of the technology are limited to the act of reproduction, they cannot create. It is here where handwriting typefaces come into play. Technically speaking, handwriting typefaces are not an invention of the digital age. There have been hot metal script typefaces that allow one to print standard handwriting models. Typewriter manufacturers have offered cursive typewriters to give typed correspondence a more personal touch. But it was the new possibilities offered by digital typeface technology that completely changed what synthetic handwriting can achieve.

Early instances of digital handwriting fonts were comparatively primitive. Each letter of the alphabet was assigned one letterform, and those letterforms did not connect when being typed. The intermediate stage of fonts with identical shapes connected in identical ways evolved into fonts with multiple letterforms and multiple kinds of connections. By now, there are many typefaces with “contextually aware letterforms and ligatures” that connect sometimes and vary in how they connect.⁶²

One of the many examples of this is Schick Toikka’s custom typeface based on the handwriting of the artist Nora Turato. The typeface has varying forms, contextual alternates, and a feature that allows for words to be crossed out (fig. 30).⁶³ It constitutes a re-standardization of the standard deviations found in an individual’s handwriting.

In 2023, Underware introduced their typeface Scribo at ATypI 2023 Paris with the talk Scribo, ergo sum— I write therefore I am. Scribo, according to Underware, is the most intelligent handwriting font they could imagine. “Full of human imperfections, but always exactly as desired,” Scribo has variations in letterforms and ligatures. It has parameters such as the length of the t-bar that depend on context, five options for five tools with which the style can be affected and more. Furthermore, “Scribo’s guiding principle has been to incorporate the action of writing into the design and embed it in the digital file.” Time-based elements such as speed, ductus, direction and order of strokes are added to the variable-font-file itself, making the act of writing animatable (fig. 31).⁶⁴ In the field of digital type design, this is revolutionary. Interestingly, this present-day-reality was already imagined in 2013.

Spike Jones’ Her (2013) is set in a not-so-distant future. Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) works as a writer for a company called beautifullyhandwrittenletters.com, where he composes, intimate, poetic letters for other people. The beginning of the movie shows him dictating a heartfelt letter to a person named Chris for a person named Loretta. As he pronounces sentences such as “I have been thinking about how I could possibly tell you how much you mean to me,” we see the digital representation of a piece of paper on a computer screen, complete with the skeuomorphic detail of the right bottom corner curling upwards. On the paper we see his words, translated into handwriting, live, as he dictates them. The computer replicates not only all the idiosyncrasies and the materiality of handwriting, but also the act of writing. It animates the individual strokes as they are being written (fig. 32).

Close inspection of one of the frames reveals that the computer also includes mistakes (fig. 33).⁶⁵ For instance, part of the word everything, is scribbled over. It is a sign of longing for genuine connection in an otherwise alienated world. Both Loretta and Chris need this message to feel authentic. While in the past, a mistake in a letter like this would have been a sign of careless haste, here it is deliberately added as proof of precisely the opposite—a genuine act of care. A thoughtful gesture performed by one human for another. The writing is disembodied but it centers around affect. By appearing authentic it fulfils its role as a sign of care and proximity.

The added mistake illustrates that, once it becomes possible to question human authorship, it becomes increasingly important to include signs of the process itself in the result for it to appear authentic.

That the cultural practice of handwriting will remain because its gesture is less rigid and individualized, because it facilitates a form of autonomous (self-) expression and self-presentation, is ultimately contingent on the assumption that these qualities will continue to be seen as valuable. Conversely, that handwriting is becoming increasingly obsolete due to technologies that are faster, more standardized, infinitely editable and infinitely redistributable is rooted in the assumption that handwriting’s only purpose is to quickly produce legible communication. It reveals a specific belief about what it means to write in general.

As this text has explored, despite, or arguably because of, changing technologies, handwriting finds itself in a constant state of flux with its role and meaning being continuously renegotiated across contexts. Maybe it will just continue to be that way.

© Jakob Wilke, 2025
BA Graphic Design
Royal Academy of Art, The Hague

Supervised by Prof. Füsun Türetken