Interesting observation going from a Broad to XF nib

[dftr]

Getting ready to start hoboniching next month so I had to start using my one XFine FP... since my favored Broad nibs are just too overwhelming and write too big.

But here's the wacky thing I started noticing with my journal that my default writing w/ the XF doesn't get me that many more words per line, words per page than the Broad!  

 

For the past week, I had been thinking I was writing twice as much to fill the page...  With that being said, if I concentrate I can scrunch up the writing to increase word density, and the hobonichi has 3mm grids so that may encourage that kind of writing.  

It just cracked me up to see my cognitive bias exposed!  Hell, maybe I'll use my broad nib after all... except I have a 140 XF I ordered on the way as a backup

[inkstainedruth]

I've done the opposite in my journals -- I tend to write small and do two lines of writing per printed line, but will still write two lines per line with the stub and italic nibs.  It's just that because the letters themselves are larger, the words take up more space across the page and I can get a journal entry done a bit faster! 

Of course tomorrow, I'll either be sitting and writing in the car, waiting for an estate sale to open; or, after I'm in and out of it, over breakfast when I find someplace to go eat....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[txomsy]

Palmer like?

 

I mean, you look at Copperplate and it looks stylized, you look at Palmer and it seems wide.

 

My take is that it is an unconscious bias: when one tries to write fast it is tempting to move the hand faster sideways and then letters are wider and more separated, even if height its smaller.

 

Plus muscle memory works too: if one is used to write at a given height/width, it is natural one tends to keep them, so if you consciously try to make your writing smaller but not thinner, you get the same amount of letters per line, smaller, but same number. Lines can be smaller though, and you can fit more lines per page.

 

Or maybe in your case it is the opposite. Or both.

 

Letter height determines line separation and how many lines fit in a page, letter width, how many letters fit in a line.