Cursive fonts for the under-20 crowd?
mara06 (2454 points) | Fri, 2009-05-15 22:39Since cursive handwriting seems to have gone the way of the dinosaurs in US public schools, I wonder if designers need to take this into consideration in advertising and other stuff targeting younger consumers where they might once have been tempted to use a font that mimics this kind of writing. Any thoughts on that?
Mara
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but since you want me dead I shall keep them to myself.
Write a wise saying and your name will live forever – Anonymous.
http://theghostwriterinthemachine.blogspot.com
Fine by me. If you want to be part of this community,why don't you register again and give yourself an actual identity?
Mara
.... have produced some nice fonts in this tradition:
http://www.houseind.com/fonts/
Their Studio Lettering face looks fantastic!
There are some fantastic ones at Veer.
Favorites include:
Johanna Whimsy, Giggle Script and Scriptorama Hostess.
People -- ya'll are missing the question! Though I always appreciate hearing about interesting new fonts, what I want to know is because kids aren't being taught cursive handwriting in school anymore, and therefore can't be expected to read it as easily as older people do, should we designers AVOID using cursive fonts in graphics targeting younger audiences, just as a pure legibility issue? Is cursive going the way of cloth cocktail napkins? (Oh God. Shoot me now.)
Mara
My question is, "they're not being taught cursive anymore?"
Where'd you find this out? I'm very curious about it, actually... although I suppose I could just google it... :p
In any case, I don't know about avoiding cursive fonts. If you search "DaFont.com" for the most popular fonts being used, you'll see a lot of grunged-out cursive fonts. Skip over to places like threadless, and again, a lot of cursive fonts being used in the t-shirt designs (not to mention their logo).
The thing about cursive text is that it's essentially the same as printed text... it just has little lines connecting the letters is all, so the eye can "fill in the blanks" so-to-speak, and understand where there's an l and an r and so on. ('course, that's just my opinion and how my eye breaks it down).
Have you been hearing anyone in the under 20 crowd say they can't read cursive?
Have you been hearing anyone in the under 20 crowd say they can't read cursive?
Yes. All my fake nieces and nephews (children of friends who think of me as their Auntie Mara). They range in age from about 13 to 22. Some are more traditionally educated than others, but all have mentioned that my handwriting, on which I pride myself as a collector and user of fountain pens, is something they never see elsewhere and find difficult to read. (I'm not sloppy.) Clerks in stores where I write checks sometimes show them to somebody else to ask if they're all right. Honest to God.
Maybe it's just a regional thing, but it seems kind of a logical evolution and it occurred to me that if this is so, it would have an impact on how we style advertising copy for that market. Maybe not.
Mara
I find this very shocking and quite sad. As jhouse suggested, if you can't read 'joned-up' handwriting over here, it's called 'not being able to read'. Maybe it's an education thing....
We have and practice cursive here in Ontario, Canada. My sons call it the fancy writing!
"Art -- the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised." - James Thurber
I'm shocked that it's no longer used, Mara. How are they to have their "signatures" authenticated say in the banking system when everyone prints "John Smith"? There are a lot of John Smiths.
"Art -- the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised." - James Thurber
I do have to admit that some people's cursive handwriting is difficult to read, and I grew up learning how to write cursive myself, but I stick more to print. (Very rarely do I write in cursive).
On that same note, though, there are people whose PRINT handwriting I can barely read, either (sometimes my own! haha).
I vote we just confuse the hell out of the majority of society and just start doing everything in shorthand.