A Voice Through Journaling -Handwriting or Fonts

As primarily a digital scrapbooker, I have long thought about ways to get my own handwriting onto a layout. This used to be, and still remains, something which is often drilled into paper-scrappers - "you should use your handwriting - it’s part of you - future generations will want to see it". Celebrity scrapbookers have blasted us with this message on many fronts, including magazine articles and more than one or two journaling idea-books on the subject. (Previously blogged about in January)

Heidi Swapp’s Love Your Own Handwriting seems to touch on a mentality expressed by many scrappers also - many of us don’t like our handwriting - but we are meant to love it right? Or is that really necessary in this day and age? I think perhaps the emphasis on using our handwriting is causing some problems on some layouts, and also isn’t looking forward to technology which is available to us now to convert scrawls to something more legible. I don’t like my own handwriting - it is hardly ever used - but there are many ways around that concern without having to invoke some tut-tuts from others suggesting we are somehow missing out on something for the future if we don’t use it.

The latest (June 2006) Edition of the UK’s top scrapbooking magazine, Scrapbook Inspirations has a reader, Anna, asking a panel of experts the following question -

"I have lots of albums full of layouts but they don’t have much journaling because I hate my handwriting and I’m not sure what to write! I want to journal before I forget what happened - any suggestions for how to start?" 

So now we’ve got to a place where a scrapbooker is so not in love with her own handwriting that she’s not done any journaling - I’ve seen that kind of pressure from all over. Since when did journaling with a computer become so dark-side?

Jane Dean answers helpfully with one side of this mentality -  "I nearly always handwrite my journaling! I think that in years to come, when my children (and hopefully, grandchildren) look through my albums they will treasure my handwriting, rather than computer generated text."

Thankfully, Mary Anne Walters answers with something which might help Anna out - "Like you, I am not fond of my own handwriting. I do over 90% of my journaling by computer. There are many ‘handwriting’ fonts available on the internet for free so if you like the look of handwriting itself you could use these instead of your own hand.." Mary Anne goes on to endorse that Anne does try to use a little of her own handwriting for history’s sake, but at least the suggestion might get Anne recording those journaling memories before they are lost, instead of fretting over using handwriting just because everyone out there is endorsing it.  

Even as a paper-scrapper only a couple of years ago, I used my computer more often than not on a layout. I had nothing against the odd hand-journaling, but as I preferred the word-art type layout, with formations of words, journaling, and later - digital photographs - it was more likely that my journaling would be done on the computer, in a text box in Microsoft Word. It just fit better that way, plus there was the benefit of having a spell-check against it, and no cross-outs. I use computers everyday as the fundamental tool for my day-job. It was more natural to type rather than hand-write, at least for me.

Handwritten journaling would normally be written out two, maybe three times before I got what I wanted said, down on paper - then once I repeated it onto the actual layout - it normally went wrong somewhere anyway - cramped up at the end as I miscalculated my space left, squashed to the right for the same reason - and I’d always take the opportunity to change a sentence as I went, despite my many practices beforehand. I like to think of it as those handwritten layouts as being quirky - maybe completely illegible for future-readers, but perhaps they will be able to tell just by the samples how quirky I am. Too bad about the memories. It was all about the handwriting sample. Can you see the irony in this?

Digital Handwriting Using Pen Tablets 

The transition to digital scrapbooking therefore went reasonably easily, based mainly on time factors as my day job and lifestyle changed to take on more responsibility - and less time for sitting down at a crafting desk. I was already using fonts to journal with - there was no transition necessary on that one. However, being mindful of the call to document our own handwriting (however shambolic it might well be), I have welcomed the addition of a Wacom pen tablet to my digital toolset. You will see my scrawling handwriting (in digital pixels, of course) now on many layouts. Learning how to write freely through the pen tablet has been a bit of a mission, and I still tend to lose pressure on the tablet on occasion. But handwriting using a digital tablet has some fabulous benefits - the undo button for one, and the ability to re-size and rotate the full writing piece to fit into exactly the space you have for it. Yes, through this new medium, I suddenly find that I love to include on many of my layouts, a piece of my own handwriting scrawls for posterity. I am finally falling in love with my own handwriting again - something which hasn’t happened since primary school years. This is simply because the digital medium gives me much more control. My handwriting no longer controls me, I control it.

For those baulking at the idea of using a digital pen and tablet to capture writing, the news over Microsoft’s newest operating system, Vista - which is due out this year, and the fact that Microsoft is heading toward the multi-media and support of tablet PCs with Vista and accompanying applications and PCs, will come as a shock for the future perhaps. Tablet PCs use screens which you can write directly onto. Many students at university are already using such technology to record study notes taken on tablets and screens at lectures. Many of the latest Pocket PCs include handwriting-capturing screens with little plastic pens, and hand-writing recognition software to convert such notes into "digital ink". Many storage companies use similar technology to scan and recognise handwritten invoices, receipts and dockets. The handwriting is recognised and converted into digital notes - often these look like standard typed notes from a computer keyboard.

Handwriting recognition software and digital ink is getting big nowadays. Take a look at the freeware product, EverNote, which is one of the small but powerful applications I have downloaded to take all my notes into. Microsoft has a similar product called OneNote. Not only does EverNote take any kind of note into it, including just typing them in, videos, graphics, images, or clippings from websites - but the upgrade version includes some powerful handwriting recognition software to convert notes scribbled on a pen tablet / tablet PC into typed notes. The time when most of us will have our handwriting digitalised and recognised within technology is no longer in the future - it’s here, and it’s cheap. And that’s something that we, as scrapbookers could be thinking about how to utilise in our own pursuits of using technology to help us achieve recording our memories for future generations.

Handwriting as a Font 

Others are quickly taking up options to have their handwriting created as a font. I’ve blogged about some of the options in doing that previously. Currently, at the Two Peas in a Bucket community, one person - September Myles - has offered to create many of these for free. You can download all the created Peas’ handwriting fonts from this URL also. I blogged about the fact, not long ago, that I am not a true scrapper without having my handwriting as a font, but I have not, as yet, caved to the pressure to have this done.

With such a plethora of handwriting fonts, it is becoming obvious to me that many of these fonts look similar in format. They are normally created using a black sharp-tipped marker pen, and each letter is written individually, so that loopy letters which normally run into each other, can - in this font creation - not run properly, giving a word a somewhat jerky look. A full word created out of these individual letters sometimes looks just a little stifled - to me at least. And because every letter "a" or "f" is going to be exactly the same in size than the one previous, then the look of a true handwriting piece will never be rendered quite realistically compared to that of a scanned piece of handwriting. But at least it’s a very good facsimile for pieces where you want a piece of yourself within the journaling.  

Fonts as a Voice

Okay, and for the rest of us without our handwriting as a font, or a pen tablet, there still remain options in using computers to journal with, which are sometimes dismissed within the push to use our handwriting.  I have long been a lover of typography as a subject, and the prevalence of things like rub-ons or stickers of popular phrases, or overlays with words on them - for paper-scrappers; or wordart overlays within digital scrapping - tells me that I’m not the only one.

I love fonts - and like many scrappers - I must own a collection of these big enough to over-run my computer’s memory if I was silly enough to install them all at once into my fonts folder. Instead, I use a font management tool to browse through and categorise my big font collection, and to choose that perfect font for a special themed layout treatment.

And when I choose a font or two or three for my journaling on a layout, I do it with great purpose. For the fonts chosen convey a message, or voice, which my own handwriting might not have been able to do. A curly font conveys something very different from that of a technology-based font. Particular stylistic fonts fit particular themes. Simple arial or helvetica allow my actual journaling to be read much more easily than sticking it into something gothic, celtic or techno-geek.  

I recently started to comment on a layout put up onto the Ultimate Digital Scrapper Contest  at digiscrappin.biz. The challenge for the week was to create an About Me layout to include some journaling about ourselves and a photo or two, of course. The layout I was to comment on looked stunning. A fantastic photograph had been used, then digitally manipulated into a shape with much blending and a few stylistic curls also. The layout was ethereal, magical, beautiful. People loved it immensely, going by the amount of comments on it. From a thumbnail perspective, the journaling to the right of the photo treatment looked okay, if a little bland in my opinion - but I was looking forward to reading it once I opened the thumbnail into full size. When I did, I found the scrapper had used her own handwriting as a font. When you think about the theme - About Me - using your own handwriting font seems a natural choice. The journaling was evenly spaced all the way down the page, and looked close to many other handwriting fonts out there - straight backs, no serifs (we don’t write with serifs in real life, right?) and the kerning and spacing between all letters and rows was consistent and evenly spaced.

The scrapper of this beautiful, ethereal, stylistic photograph with magical blends and sparkly bits, had included her own handwriting font on the layout about her. But it was a font - a facsimile of the real handwriting this woman did. The even spacing of a computerised word created out of individual letters penned by herself, in the same size, same spacing as all it’s neighbours - took something away from me on viewing this magical thing. The journaling voice was bland, even - non-emotional. It did not fit with the words actually being used, or the photographic treatment of the layout itself. I certainly didn’t say this in my comments, because this was only one viewer’s opinion - but it taught me a lesson in the huge power of a font-choice to convey or dis-communicate the message of the layout and journaling in total. That journaling on that layout needed a magical font. It needed something slightly swirly, and for spacing to emphasise the words.

Sometimes we get the font choices wrong. We follow the latest trends - notice the most popular fonts being used in magazines, on gallery layouts. I well remember the first of those a few years ago - Scriptina was an absolute nightmare to read (and to hand-cut from paper) but on a few layouts, it actually did the layout good. On many, it didn’t.  It was just there because it was trendy. Handwriting fonts are now very trendy also. There are good ones, but the technology is also creating some very mundane ones. If we are going to insist on using them, then we have to look at the full voice being offered in their usage on a layout, just like any other font out there.

But Wendi Speciale of Wendi Speciale Designs, in an interview through the Scrapbook Answers Magazine (May 2006 Edition) admits that she is a font junkie like I am, and expresses this with style -

"I’m obsessed with typography, the art of it all. I also love the notion that in scrapbooking, the fonts we choose are essentially our tone of voice.

If it’s a quirky, cute layout, I’ll go for a typewriter font; if it’s a serious, heartfelt layout, I’ll go for a script title for the layout. I always keep my journaling in an Arial-type font because I want the writing to be clean and readable." 

Choose your voice with care - whether handwriting or font. Each says something about you. 

Comments

[Krista Mettler]

Hi Michelle, I can't believe I'm the first person to comment on this blog post. I actually, when I saw the topic, clicked "keep new" on my BlogLines so I could come back and read it when I actually had time to spend with it.

Ya see, I'm a self-professed font junkie too. I do not have (nor do I have any intention of having made) my own handwriting font. I have a Wacom tablet and that is sufficient for me. But what I adore, and what I consider an intrinsic part of any layout I do, is font selection. It's just as important as the elements I use. The photo(s). It's so key to conveying such an important part of a layout, yet I feel a lot of people don't look at it that way. Some layouts end up looking sterile (like the one you mentioned). They look too same-y. They lack personality and "voice" that can be conveyed with the right font for a title or for journaling.

I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed reading something that spoke to what I feel about fonts and typography myself.