| Title: |
A Practice in Search of Theory |
Vol: 13.4 |
| Author(s): |
Poggenpohl, Sharon |
| Abstract: |
Over the past two years, Visible Language conducted an international survey of design schools in order to determine the kind and vitality of the research effort. This special issue presents the theory, research, and visual experiment that was discovered. The need for developing a theoretical structure, a more integrated approach to research and its impact on design education is explored. The problems associated with these tasks are analyzed.
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| Title: |
Visual Differential Theory |
Vol: 13.4 |
| Author(s): |
Manning, Robert |
| Abstract: |
This work attempts to de-mystify and objectify what has been considered by many teachers, students, and practitioners of visual communication to be an intuitive process; namely, the creation of art and communication design. Expressionist art and communication design are not distinct and unrelated practices but are part of a continuum which can be identified and understood. The visual differential theory develops a conceptual model which attempts to show relationships between visual manipulation and its effect on the communication process. The semantic differential technique serves as the basis for establishing the parameters of the model's components: order, graphic, and literal. Once grasped, the model provides the basis for systematic teaching and analysis of the communication design.
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| Title: |
A Language of Form: Two Dimensional Isometric System |
Vol: 13.4 |
| Author(s): |
Stuhr, David |
| Abstract: |
Designers create form in relation to processes or materials, but tradition in design has not established an objective method of inquiry that would lead to an understanding of the relationships present in forms. Rather, a subjective, nonintellectual, nonacademic precedent has persisted. Because an objective method of inquiry, one which would result in an augmented perception and comprehension of form in relation to the visual world, is desirable a recent and extensive search of the current literature was undertaken. This search revealed that an objective point of view does not exist, but a system of relationships used by physical scientists--classical symmetry theory--could be adapted for design studies. This system reflects an objective point of view, requires a rigorous academic discipline, and has the possibility of extensive application. Ultimately, it may lead to the formation and conventionalization of a visual language.
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| Title: |
Semiotics and Graphic Design Education |
Vol: 13.4 |
| Author(s): |
Ockerse, Thomas; van Dijk, Hans C. |
| Abstract: |
The difficulty associated with establishing definitions and goals in graphic design education are explored followed by semiotic theory which is being used as a structural basis and metalanguage for students within the graphic design program at the Rhode Island School of Design. Thomas Ockerse and Hans C. van Dijk collaborated in the design of an innovative curriculum which identifies significant communication principles and develops an experimental approach with emphasis on identification of alternative visual possibilities. Specific problems are discussed in terms of theory and complemented by a visual presentation of related student work.
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| Title: |
The Graphic Information Research Unit |
Vol: 13.4 |
| Author(s): |
Reynolds, Linda |
| Abstract: |
For the past 8 years the Graphic Information Research Unit has been working on various projects relating to the legibility of scientific and technical information. Much of this work has been funded by the British Library, and has been concerned with problems such as the degradation of printed images as a result of copying processes, the effects of show-through and other background patterns on legibility, the design of typewritten and typeset bibliographics, the design of COM catalogues, and the design of library guiding systems. The Unit's survey of some of the problems of providing adequate guiding in libraries and museums is summarized, and two recent studies of COM catalogues are described.
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| Title: |
Facility of Handwriting Using Different Movements |
Vol: 13.3 |
| Author(s): |
Woodworth, R. S. |
| Abstract: |
R. S. Woodworth is best known among psychologists for his text Experimental Psychology. However, early in his career he produced a research monograph on the accuracy of voluntary movement which included a section on different ways of producing handwriting movements. We reproduce this section here for two reasons: on the one hand it is an early example of a psychologist's interest in handwriting, which he followed up with careful observation; on the other hand it provides a basis for comparison to show the extent to which current work on behavioral aspects of handwriting is not only concerned with measurement but has progressed to possible theoretical interpretation.
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| Title: |
Computer-Aided Analysis of Handwriting Movements |
Vol: 13.3 |
| Author(s): |
Tuelings, Hans-Leo H. M.; Thomassen, Arnold J. W. M. |
| Abstract: |
The paper attempts to demonstrate that writing movements -- once recorded on a suitable xy-digitizer -- can be processed and analyzed by means of a computer for many different purposes. This method is used in the authors' laboratory to study the human writing apparatus and, to a smaller extent, the reading of handwriting. From the writing movement certain time and frequency functions are derived and the kinds of information that may be obtained from these functions are briefly indicated. Some feasible practical applications are discussed, and the paper concludes with a suggestion on a new kind of writing instruction.
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| Title: |
A Computer to Check Signatures |
Vol: 13.3 |
| Author(s): |
Watson, R. S.; Pobgee, P. J. |
| Abstract: |
A growing need to check people's identity automatically -- as a safeguard against crime -- has led to the development of a computer that verifies signatures by the speed and sequence of pen movements as well as by the finished sample.
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| Title: |
Handwriting Classification of Forsenic Science |
Vol: 13.3 |
| Author(s): |
Ansell, Michael |
| Abstract: |
Recent methods of classification of features in handwriting for use in the forensic examination of documents are described, including the computerized system of classification. Developments in the statistical analysis of the way people construct numbers and lay out their writing are reviewed. The potential usefulness of these systems in quantifying the current document examiners' scale of probability for attributing questioned writings to particular authors is examined.
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| Title: |
A Competence Model of Handwriting |
Vol: 13.3 |
| Author(s): |
Hollerbach, John |
| Abstract: |
It is proposed that handwriting production is fundamentally an oscillatory process arising from two orthogonal joints. Letter shapes emerge from an oscillation train by a process of constrained modulation. The choice of underlying oscillation and modulations limits the diversity of letter shapes and gives rise to a common writing style. The model was tested by synthetic production of human-like cursive script with a mechanical arm under computer control. In this simulation the vertical joint acts as the driving joint, the horizontal joint as the shaping joint. Various force constraints on the oscillations and modulations are proposed.
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| Title: |
Slips of the Pen |
Vol: 13.3 |
| Author(s): |
Ellis, Andrew W. |
| Abstract: |
A corpus of the author's own slips of the pen is analyzed. Four processing levels -- lexical, graphemic, allographic, and graphic -- are postulated with different types of error being assigned to different levels in the production of handwriting.
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| Title: |
Variability of Handwritten Characters |
Vol: 13.3 |
| Author(s): |
Wing, Alan M. |
| Abstract: |
Two aspects of the variability of handwriting are considered. In the first part there is a discussion of the effects of variability in the shapes of letters on the legibility. An experiment to compare the relative advantages of cursive and block capital writing is summarized. The second part summarizes experiments concerned with the time taken to prepare handwriting movements and with the variability of the timing of movements in the execution of handwriting.
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| Title: |
Directional Preference in Writing |
Vol: 13.3 |
| Author(s): |
Thomassen, Arnold J. W. M.; Tuelings, Hans-Leo H. M. |
| Abstract: |
The paper looks into the origin and the development with age of the preference to make either clockwise or counterclockwise curves and contours in writing and drawing. Twenty-six subjects of four age groups performed four writing and drawing tasks. Two of these were writing single symbols and accurately copying patterns; the other two were free scribbling and drawing repeated circles at a high rate. The developing directional preferences that were observed between four years of age and adulthood suggest that two semi-independent motor systems are involved in writing: one, more primitive, for rapid non-figurative tasks evolving from flexion-first to extension-first; the other, which occurs later but more rapidly under a higher degree of cognitive control, for precision and symbolic functions, favoring counterclockwise curves, irrespective of the writing hand.
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| Title: |
Children's Copying Performances |
Vol: 13.3 |
| Author(s): |
S¿vik, Nils |
| Abstract: |
Copying is a common technique for training perceptuo-motor skills such as handwriting. An experiment is described in which stimuli to be copied were presented dynamically or statically close to or distant from children seven and ten years old. The implications of the results for teaching handwriting are discussed.
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| Title: |
Handwriting Ergonomics |
Vol: 13.3 |
| Author(s): |
Kao, Henry S. R. |
| Abstract: |
The purpose of this paper is to suggest a conceptual framework for the handwriting system, consisting of three elements: the hand, the writing instrument, and paper. Within this system the hand control mechanism, the writing instrument design, and their integration in the dynamic writing on the paper are discussed relative to efficient, legible, motivated as well as fatigue-reducing handwriting performance. Based on this system framework, an overview of relevant studies and a proposal for needed areas of research are presented. Designs of the writing instruments (in terms of penpoints, shanks, and other physical characteristics), the reduction of writing fatigue, and comparisons of various instruments are analyzed.
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| Title: |
The Design of a Typeface |
Vol: 13.2 |
| Author(s): |
Unger, Gerard |
| Abstract: |
The design of Demos typeface was the result of technical as well as aesthetic considerations. Demos was designed for the Hell CRT Digiset, an electronic composition process that creates type by vertical lines. Curves and angles appear smooth only after emulsion. Rather than falling back on hot-metal methods, the unique characteristics of the Digiset were used to determine the design, ever mindful that visual appearance is the final arbiter of any letterform design. All of the type for this issue of Visible Language has been set in Demos for the Hell Digiset; a few of the typographic elements have been set in the companion face Praxis.
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| Title: |
An Experimental Approach to the Typographic Design of Textbooks |
Vol: 13.2 |
| Author(s): |
Wendt, Dirk |
| Abstract: |
Three different approaches were taken to try to improve the legibility of a textbook for secondary school: 1) two columns of about 58 mm (15 picas) line width instead of one column of about 126 mm (32 picas) line width, 2) insertion of additional space between the constituents of the sentences to convey the phrase structure of the text, and 3) "visualizing" the information by structuring it vertically and horizontally in such a way that the total design is more appropriate to the visual medium. In an experimental test of a lesson in physics printed in a standard version and in the above three experimental versions, given to 600 students, only the third on ("visualization") showed an improvement over the standard version.
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| Title: |
A Monastic Dilemma Posed by the Invention of Printing |
Vol: 13.2 |
| Author(s): |
Brann, Noel L. |
| Abstract: |
By no means was the invention of printing universally looked upon by contemporary witnesses an an unqualifiable progressive step in the history of mankind; in the monastic scriptorium, for example, the printing art came out into direct competition with the long-cultivated art of handcopying. A Benedictine abbot living in the age of incunabula, the Abbot Trithemius of Sponheim near Kreuznach in Germany, composed his De-laude scriptorum manualium (1492) in support of the proposition that the handcopying of texts is in many respects superior to printing. However, the author was not hostile to the printing art in principle, viewing it on balance as a divinely-inspired aid in the golden age of monastic erudition. Far from being a reactionary in the face of the printing revolution, Trithemius was one of printing's most vigorous Renaissance advocates.
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| Title: |
Mediated Reading of the Partially Sighted |
Vol: 13.2 |
| Author(s): |
Marmolin, Hans; Nilsson, Lars-Gšran; Smedshammar, Hans |
| Abstract: |
The model presented extend current theorizing about reading by relating the underlying processes of skilled and average readers to those of poor readers. While the non-mediated reading process for skilled readers is immediately directed to the meaning of a word, the reading process for poor readers is mediated by the interruption of the individual letters constituting the word. The continuous interaction between the interpretation of single letters and reading for meaning of the word is what determines the slow reading rate for poor readers. An empirical study was carried out to demonstrate the viability of the present approach. A series of measures were derived to compare the reading process for good and poor partially sighted readers. The locus of the difference in reading rate between the two groups of subjects was confined mainly to the peripheral subprocesses of reading whereas the deeper and more semantic levels of the reading process were less affected.
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| Title: |
A Different Look at Typography |
Vol: 13.2 |
| Author(s): |
Larcher, Jean |
| Abstract: |
Despite the mechanization and mass production of typography, some letter design still retains the aesthetic qualities of individual, hand-executed design. My work is influenced by studies of calligraphy and optical illusions. In addition, the innovative lettering of American graphic artists has shown me semantic influences of letter design in which form contributed to meaning. Nowhere is this concept more alive than in the logotype, the letterform symbol that reflects the essence of a company or institution.
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| Title: |
The Craft of Handwriting |
Vol: 13.1 |
| Author(s): |
Lehman, Charles |
| Abstract: |
Handwriting is a traditional craft in its own right with its own criteria of quality. Successful selection of appropriate tools, techniques and letter designs for modern handwriting education requires a collaboration of experienced classroom teachers, educational researchers and traditional craftsmen to share their understanding of the developing psychology of the learner, the historical and modern development of handwriting models and the techniques and materials needed for personal proficiency in performing the craft. The result of such collaboration can be found in writings of some calligraphers and in the instructional programs currently used in some schools.
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| Title: |
Let Children Show Us How to Help Them Write |
Vol: 13.1 |
| Author(s): |
Graves, Donald H. |
| Abstract: |
Preliminary findings are presented from a current two-year MIE case study observing the development of primary children's composing, spelling, and motor behaviors during the writing process. Handwriting is influenced by all phases of the writing process and problems unique to different stages of the writer's development. Children's earliest efforts at writing resemble their speech habits in their lack of organization. Later, when children choose their own writing topics, the language for expression, and written format, the compositions become more successful. Handwriting is one component of writing that illustrates the nature of children's decision making processes. Teachers attempt to guide the children's craft to greater clarity in drawing letters, word order, word separation, page placement, and later, in rewriting and use of prosodic techniques.
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| Title: |
A Dynamic Approach to Teaching Handwriting Skills |
Vol: 13.1 |
| Author(s): |
Macleod, Iain; Procter, Peter |
| Abstract: |
A computer-based system for teaching handwriting skills has been developed, using a graphic display screen and a hand-held "pen." The system is such that exercises can be completed only by executing the required sequence of strokes in the specified order and direction and within a preset accuracy. In the simplest presentation, a thin guideline is displayed for each stroke in turn. The computer responds to correct pen movements by leaving a thicker track behind. Incorrect pen movements are ignored and a blinking spot calls attention to the point where the pen should be. The resultant visual pattern is the teacher's well-formed example rather than the student's actual strokes, thus reinforcing the appearance of the desired result rather than the student's possibly ill-formed attempts. The system emphasizes the process used in creating cursive writing as well as the appearance of the product and, in one application, has been used to teach fluent signatures to intellectually handicapped students.
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| Title: |
Design of a New Pen Range |
Vol: 13.1 |
| Author(s): |
Rhodes, Chris |
| Abstract: |
Basic questions that confront a pen designer begin with the style of the nib. Apart from specialists' pens used for commercial marking or technical graphics, the designer is restricted to the fountain pen, the ballpoint, the fibre-tip, the plastic-tip, and the roller-tip. Unique, specialized inks and reservoir systems serve each of these kinds of pens. Each pen's usability is directly affected by its barrel design, which can vary in size for children and adults.
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| Title: | Handwriting to Fit Pens |
Vol: 13.1 |
| Author(s): |
Briem, Gunnaluger S. E. |
| Abstract: |
The limited range of the pointed pen restricted the range of movements that make up the copperplate hand. The ball-point and the fibre-tip can write in any direction and do not fit the motion patterns that modern handwriting inherited from the copperplate. Analysis of the late roman cursive, a monoline documentary hand, might yield some alternative solutions in the rethinking of handwriting models for children.
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| Title: |
Towards a New Handwriting Adapted to the Ballpoint Pen |
Vol: 13.1 |
| Author(s): |
Gray, Nicolete |
| Abstract: |
Modern ballpoint and fibre pens are radically different in design and construction, and they can move with equal ease in all directions. The capacity for all-direction line movement fosters development of more convenient and efficient letter designs and combinations. After rejecting the typographic models and debased cursive designs used for formal writing in the past, the natural scribble of children is taken as a beginning point for all-direction cursive writing. By integrating such handwriting with the teaching of reading and other language arts, the habit of legible handwriting can easily flow into an adult hand characterized as fast, pleasurable, and flexible enough for individual expression. Certain historic hands, late roman cursive, gothic, and secretary, offer examples of contradictory rhythms that support the goal of all-direction writing movement. Specific new models are presented for modern writing but only as provisional designs. Experimental interpretations are encouraged; standard techniques for penhold are questioned in favor of new possibilities that reflect the all-direction approach to writing.
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| Title: |
Cannons of Renaissance Handwriting |
Vol: 13.1 |
| Author(s): |
Osley, A. S. |
| Abstract: |
Due to the greatly increased demand for clear, rapid handwriting by secretaries in the service of government, church, and commerce, Renaissance writing masters found themselves playing an important role as instructors. In producing their manuals for students, the writing masters utilized the recent technically developed script of scholars and diplomats and churchmen, the cancellaresca cursiva. The teaching of seven Renaissance writing masters is assembled to examine separately what the masters had to say about basic elements of writing--slope, pen angle, letter proportion, length of ascenders, spacing, and joining. Having thus identified the fundamental canons that regulated the classic chancery hand of the Renaissance, the author applies them to modern systems of italic handwriting and concludes that the models of Alfred Fairbank as seen in his Handwriting Manual and the Beacon Writing Series come closest to the spirit and teaching of the early writing masters. He supports the use of the edged pen as a teaching aid for young children
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