Do Stubs And Italics Take The Individuality Out Of Handwriting?

[Mickey]

Far be it for me to be a voice of reason, but it's fairly clear in that the Anglic world, the proponents of italic have been hostile toward roundhand relatives or descendents, of which I would consider Palmer a member in frequently lousy standing. (Palmer is more of marketing shtick than a distinct handwriting.) I suggest that this was a natural (if somewhat ignorant) response to the foul state of handwriting in the English speaking world when Fairbank et al. started their crusade. Proselytes are frequently less than tolerant of their former 'false beliefs.' When in doubt, shell the old temple. 'Nuff said.

 

Rather than forge an intricate argument, let me just say that when I see hideously bad italic, I'll recommend the scribbler give Spencer (process) a whack and when the foul scrawl is Palmeresque, I'll recommend italic (architecture).

[JonSzanto]

May I throw something into the stream here?

 

It appears to me that the thread has taken on a somewhat different thrust than initially asked about in the OP. If I read it correctly, OP was asking about the effect of stub and italic nibs on a persons handwriting, and how they felt the innate qualities of the cut of the nib obscured certain characteristics that were more observable in a plain, rounded-tip nib (not that I agree, but that is a different matter).

 

However, it seems to have evolved into a discussion of how differing schools of penmanship/writing have manifest themselves, not the nibs. It even appears that some will put forth a number of examples of cursive handwriting done by various people with a plain nib, and contrast it with how writing is supposed to look if going strictly by the (Italic) book. IOW, we've moved from a difference of hardware and it's effects on the writer, to differing schools of handwriting.

 

Seems that way to me, anyway. I'm more interested in how people view the effects of differently cut/styled nibs on a person, because while I favor CI/stub nibs for a certain (substantial) part of my pen use, the very last thing I'll ever be accused of is being a remarkable example of cursive italic penmanship, or anything remotely like anything one would point to as being... beautiful. Or even legible, for that matter!

[Mickey]

However, it seems to have evolved into a discussion of how differing schools of penmanship/writing have manifest themselves, not the nibs. It even appears that some will put forth a number of examples of cursive handwriting done by various people with a plain nib, and contrast it with how writing is supposed to look if going strictly by the (Italic) book. IOW, we've moved from a difference of hardware and it's effects on the writer, to differing schools of handwriting.

 

You're getting close to the problem with the original question: a piece of hardware neither adds nor subtracts individuality. That's not to say that the OP's observation was entirely without merit. An italic or stub nib need not be used to write italic, but it does need to be used in a manner which accommodates or exploits the nib geometry. Failure to do that typically results in a mess. Whether said mess has more or less character is open to debate. My vote is I don't think it matters. (A quote from Forest Gump's mother goes here, and it doesn't include the word chocolate.)

 

Let me be blunt. (please!) You can't purchase personality or technique, but you can rent it. If you want interesting handwriting and aren't willing to practice your penmanship, hire a calligrapher.

Edited September 28, 2013 by Mickey

[JonSzanto]

You're getting close to the problem with the original question: a piece of hardware neither adds nor subtracts individuality.

 

Mickey, for the most part I agree with what you had to say (which is why I didn't quote it all). However, I do diverge from the above, unless you can point out *strong* differences in the following analogy:

 

Music is a very expressive art, and especially if we were to go into the realm of any music that requires improvisation (jazz, for instance), or even very personal interpretations of classical cadenzas, the 'hardware' that the instrumentalist is using can, and does, very much influence how well they can express their individual take on the music at that moment. A great musician will (almost) always have something interesting to say, but if you hamper them with a less expressive 'tool', it limits how they are able to shape the music itself. Indeed, an instrument that can inflect the line, if you will, by virtue of different qualities from a more... vanilla instrument, has an important place in the creation of the art.

 

I make no bones about it: when I use my stubs or italic points, no one in their right mind would ever mistake it for great penmanship, nor truly artistic calligraphy. Having said that, I never hesitate to use those very nibs for their - to me - inherent expressive qualities when the writing begs to have a part of me show - a note of condolence, a letter to a friend, a thank you note to another person. My handwriting neither improves nor degrades in it's basic qualities - consistency, spacing, balance - but I find, to my eye, I am able to put a bit more of my character in the words on paper. If it is only to my eye, then so be it: sending that note, I feel like I've managed to bring a bit of the human into the world.

Edited September 28, 2013 by JonSzanto

[Columba Livia]

Just because I hold a positive opinion about certain aspects of Italic does not mean that I can be lumped together with EJ and his disciples. This is what I took an exception to.

 

Well, you said in fact more so than Palmer-style cursive so I assumed you were stating as a point of fact that Italic can be more personalized, in which case I thought it worth providing examples of the variety of business writing so that people can make up their own minds. Although thinking about it, personalisation does seem a rather vague and arbitrary concept since all handwriting by its nature is going to show some personalisation. Likewise all handwriting will, because it is written by individuals, demonstrate individuality.

 

I wanted to give some of the historical context of Italic handwriting which is why I mentioned Johnston, Fairbank et al. If in doing I appeared that I was attributing views to you that you do not have then I apologize.

 

 

 

the foul state of handwriting in the English speaking world when Fairbank et al. started their crusade

 

They were naturally going to say that handwriting was in a foul state, but I am not sure it it was really the case.

[Mickey]

 

Mickey, for the most part I agree with what you had to say (which is why I didn't quote it all). However, I do diverge from the above, unless you can point out *strong* differences in the following analogy:

 

Music is a very expressive art, and especially if we were to go into the realm of any music that requires improvisation (jazz, for instance), or even very personal interpretations of classical cadenzas, the 'hardware' that the instrumentalist is using can, and does, very much influence how well they can express their individual take on the music at that moment.

Let me stop you right there. (BTW, music was my sole source of income for 35 years.) Your analogy misses what I was saying. To use music as the basis of analogy, what I meant was closer to 'buying a violin, even a Strad, doesn't make an Ipod user a fiddler (individualistic or not).

 

As for musical improvisation, which isn't nearly as improvised as many non-musicians think, it is the result of MANY hours of practice embedding in one's muscles (and ear) the scales, arpeggios, and cliches from which improvisations are assembled. (This is no less true for singers than instrumentalists.) Then, of course, you need to discipline the mind to recognize what in the original composition to replace and which of the universe of 'reasonable' substitutions will produce the desired effect. We come back to Shakespeare being something more than a chimp with a typewriter (that's an eco-friendly word-processor to you youngsters).

 

This might be closer still, 'being able to carry a tune and buying white tie and tails won't make you one of the Three Tenor. There will be nothing individualistic about your performance of "Nessun dorma" except its incompetence.' There is a cost for craft or art, usually the larger cost, beyond the price of the tools. 'Paying your dues' is not really about writing a check to AFM, AGMA, et al.

[Mickey]

 

They were naturally going to say that handwriting was in a foul state, but I am not sure it it was really the case.

I doubt it was, any more than the 'end of the world as we know it' scenarios we hear on the nightly news. If you can't find a crisis, create one, actual or imaginary.

[JonSzanto]

Mickey, I think you tend to look at this a little more black and white than I do. I certainly, certainly respect your gifts with a pen in hand, and I am (always) in awe of those gifted artisans who can wield the more specialized tools for their high art (I am not broadly educated in this world, but I have watched in quiet amazement at some of John De Collibus' videos (always with beautiful music!)

 

I still don't see how this negates my experience, or my perspective, that - in my hand - the shape of the nib, and how it is meant to work on the paper (say, an italic vs standard tip) has a very direct influence on how my writing appears. I appreciate that there are ways I can craft my words that feel more special to me this way; they would never be confused with a skilled artisan, nor do they appear to come from a particular school or style of writing, but they impart a character to the look that I can't get with a plain vanilla nib.

 

I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else. It certainly reflects my experience and use, though.

[cellmatrix]

I don't have italics, but own some stubs and enjoy them for certain occasions. But in seeing examples written with stubs and italics, they often look quite similar. I think the line variation covers a lot of the quirks and individual characteristics that are more readily seen with regular round tips. Maybe for that reason, I wouldn't want all or most of my nibs to be stubs or italics. What's your impression?

 

It depends on what you want to do, what your aptitude is. If you love rules and never deviate from the teachings of the penmanship potentates, then you remain on a path towards beautiful but highly structured and predictable italic writing. However if you are a bit of a rebel and choose not to follow all the italic rules all the time, then you can begin to express your own creativity with these nibs. Jon is spot on with his music analogy, its a choice between performing freeform jazz improvisation or playing a challenging classical piece exactly as written. Its order versus creative disorder, both are beautiful to those willing to appreciate them. If you can take a nib like an italic, which has a tendency towards creating order and can tweak some of the order out of it with your individualized writing, and pull it off well - that can be an accomplishment in and of itself. Good luck.

Edited September 28, 2013 by cellmatrix

[smk]

 

Well, you said in fact more so than Palmer-style cursive so I assumed you were stating as a point of fact that Italic can be more personalized, in which case I thought it worth providing examples of the variety of business writing so that people can make up their own minds. Although thinking about it, personalisation does seem a rather vague and arbitrary concept since all handwriting by its nature is going to show some personalisation. Likewise all handwriting will, because it is written by individuals, demonstrate individuality.

 

 

Yup - that was a poor choice of words on my part. I quite agree that personalisation is vague and arbitrary, and that alone is sufficient to render the 'in fact' part meaningless. Thank you for sharing the examples - I enjoyed looking at them.

 

I grew up with cursive writing all around me, pretty much all of it was developed individually. Cursive handwriting instructions were haphazard and inconsistent and only offered in the last year of primary school. In middle school, we were required to use fountain pens, ballpoint pens were strictly forbidden. Joined up writing was considered mature so everybody went their own way to develop one - nobody even knew about the Italic style. The result was a varied and often attractive examples of cursive handwriting.

 

I remember being amazed in high school when a classmate showed me how to make the handwriting nicer simply by adding a second stroke to every vertical - the result was beautiful. I had no idea that it was Copperplate we were trying to emulate :-)

 

Mickey, I think you tend to look at this a little more black and white than I do. I certainly, certainly respect your gifts with a pen in hand, and I am (always) in awe of those gifted artisans who can wield the more specialized tools for their high art (I am not broadly educated in this world, but I have watched in quiet amazement at some of John De Collibus' videos (always with beautiful music!)

 

I still don't see how this negates my experience, or my perspective, that - in my hand - the shape of the nib, and how it is meant to work on the paper (say, an italic vs standard tip) has a very direct influence on how my writing appears. I appreciate that there are ways I can craft my words that feel more special to me this way; they would never be confused with a skilled artisan, nor do they appear to come from a particular school or style of writing, but they impart a character to the look that I can't get with a plain vanilla nib.

 

I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else. It certainly reflects my experience and use, though.

 

It makes perfect sense to me. A broad-edged nib is merely a tool that allows line variation in the strokes. One is not restricted to using it solely for Italic.

 

I think it is somewhat unfortunate that broad (or square) edged nibs are called Italic. We don't call pointed flexible nibs 'Spencerian'. Does anyone know about the origin of this confusing naming convention?

 

Salman

[Mickey]

Mickey, I think you tend to look at this a little more black and white than I do. I certainly, certainly respect your gifts with a pen in hand, and I am (always) in awe of those gifted artisans who can wield the more specialized tools for their high art (I am not broadly educated in this world, but I have watched in quiet amazement at some of John De Collibus' videos (always with beautiful music!)

 

I still don't see how this negates my experience, or my perspective, that - in my hand - the shape of the nib, and how it is meant to work on the paper (say, an italic vs standard tip) has a very direct influence on how my writing appears.

I don't see that we disagree all that much. You (seem to) recognize the nature of the tool and attempt to use it in a manner that makes it speak to some intended effect. That you evolve (or learn) a style based on what you experience is beside the point. The process is quite different from buying an edged pen with the expectation that it will automatically make one's handwriting more interesting, artistic, better, personal, whatever.

[JonSzanto]

Indeed, Mickey. Rare is the occasion that a benefit of that manner is automatic. Good things come with effort and intent.

[Mickey]

If you never deviate from exactly how its taught by the penmanship potentates, then you remain on a path towards beautiful but highly structured and predictable writing. However if you choose not to always follow the italic rules, and improvise, then you can begin to express your own creativity with these nibs. I totally agree with Jon's music analogy, its like comparing freeform jazz improvisation to playing a challenging classical piece exactly as written.

Let me throw something in here for you to think about. I was once asked at a lecture to describe the difference between professional and amateur. (The group was composed mostly of classically trained musicians.) My answer was something like the following. "The amateur is obsessed with finding ways to escape the page, where the professional is continually amazed by the range of possibilities on the page."

 

In short, "exactly as written" is oxymoron and a dangerous obstacle to artistic growth. The most heavily (over) notated score is still only a suggestion for its performance. Coming back on topic (almost) no hand with which I am familiar is so proscriptive as to defeat utterly interpretation and individuality (though it might seem so to one who has not diligently studied the hand).

[cellmatrix]

Let me throw something in here for you to think about. I was once asked at a lecture to describe the difference between professional and amateur. (The group was composed mostly of classically trained musicians.) My answer was something like the following. "The amateur is obsessed with finding ways to escape the page, where the professional is continually amazed by the range of possibilities on the page."

 

In short, "exactly as written" is oxymoron and a dangerous obstacle to artistic growth. The most heavily (over) notated score is still only a suggestion for its performance. Coming back on topic (almost) no hand with which I am familiar is so proscriptive as to defeat utterly interpretation and individuality (though it might seem so to one who has not diligently studied the hand).

Thanks for taking the time to write this for me. Basically I use terms like amateur and professional more on an individual basis, not in a sweeping manner, but I agree with most of the other things you say. Take care and enjoy the thread.

[Mickey]

Thanks for taking the time to write this for me. Basically I use terms like amateur and professional more on an individual basis, not in a sweeping manner, but I agree with most of the other things you say. Take care and enjoy the thread.

I was kind of stuck with the terms used to frame the questions, (i.e., amateur vs pro) but the context of the session made it clear that amateur was a synonym for lacking the tools, knowledge, and/or skill to earn a living in the profession (and genre) and professional as a synonym for artist level performer. That both species might be amateur in the positive (Latin root) sense of the word was not in question. Naif and adept could just as easily have been substituted, or novice and expert.

[cellmatrix]

thanks for the explanation. I am in academics myself and get challenging questions from students too. Sure, students must first develop expertise and a solid foundation in any discipline, no one would disagree. But for those students who have gotten to a level of expertise, and have an inclination to go beyond the existing structure and hypotheses of the field and think outside the box, I would never squelch them in their efforts but rather try to encourage them. Just like I would still want to encourage the OP to think outside the box in their penmanship, especially if they are looking to maintain their individuality with an italic nib. Anyway, I do like your interpretation of my phrase 'exactly as written' - its pretty insightful.

Edited September 28, 2013 by cellmatrix

[ac12]

I use both standard round nib and italic nibs.

I feel that each has it's place.

 

When I write a note, it is on a card with limited real estate, so I use a regular F tip nib. If I have more space, like on a letter, I might pull out the 1.1 italic nib. Which nib I use also depends on how I feel about the person I am writing to. I feel that the italic nib writing cursive gives me a more expressive flair that I cannot do with a round tip nib. But I need more paper real estate to do so.

 

And that might be what is hiding the errors and other issues. This is similar to me using a wide Medium tip, where the width of the ink line closes up some of my letters and you cannot see how good or bad my hand was, vs. when I write the same using a smaller F or XF tip were you can see exactly where my line was. When I write larger with a Medium tip nib, you can see how good or bad my ink line is.

 

For the envelope, I have the space to use a 1.1 italic nib, IF I choose to do so, and I can use either a print/italic or cursive format as I choose.

[sexauerw]

Although I use both round and flat nibs, I am growing steadily fonder of stubs and italics. My cursive writing is nearly illegible no matter what pen I use, so I print everything but my signature. What I find is that crisp italic nibs make my printing much more legible than it usually is with round nibs, mostly because they force me to slow down a bit and be neater lest the pen stop writing. What I don't see is a loss of individuality, the finished page is distinctly mine, as seen below. (The writing, not the composition, of course!) I don't attempt to do calligraphy, it is simply printing with a 1mm crisp italic nib. It's not fast, but it is far faster than calligraphy. The writing style is from my Engineering 101 class in my freshman year of college, as engineering drawings were required to be easily legible and computerized drafting systems hadn't come along yet.

 

http://bulk-share.slickpic.com/album/share/1Mz10TMOT1NZzM/3623307.0/org/p/Writing_Sample%2C_Sheaffer_Targa_1001%2C_Gettysburg_Address.jpg

 

[mboschm]

http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/o565/mboschm/DSC_0550_zps596c260e.jpg

[Blade Runner]

Although I use both round and flat nibs, I am growing steadily fonder of stubs and italics. My cursive writing is nearly illegible no matter what pen I use, so I print everything but my signature. What I find is that crisp italic nibs make my printing much more legible than it usually is with round nibs, mostly because they force me to slow down a bit and be neater lest the pen stop writing. What I don't see is a loss of individuality, the finished page is distinctly mine, as seen below. (The writing, not the composition, of course!) I don't attempt to do calligraphy, it is simply printing with a 1mm crisp italic nib. It's not fast, but it is far faster than calligraphy. The writing style is from my Engineering 101 class in my freshman year of college, as engineering drawings were required to be easily legible and computerized drafting systems hadn't come along yet.

 

http://bulk-share.slickpic.com/album/share/1Mz10TMOT1NZzM/3623307.0/org/p/Writing_Sample%2C_Sheaffer_Targa_1001%2C_Gettysburg_Address.jpg

 

It's very legible and attracting printing, but wouldn't you consider your illegible cursive to show more individuality than uniform printing?