My Wish to Write in Someone Else's Hand

In this presentation I will share work-in-progress turning historical manuscripts into keyboard-able fonts. Addressing both practical and philosophical questions, I will begin with the projects context in visual artworks, then trace the development of the scripts from acquisition of source material through production of fonts using free jpeg-to-font software. I will address the challenges of creating a convincingly flowing cursive in a limited set of glyphs, and discuss the some of the design issues that emerged: legibility, personal and standard forms, and historical references. There is a vast corpus of handwritten documents, but is cursive yet another species doomed to extinction in the Anthropocene of Keyboards? I hope this talk will raise questions for discussion about the nature of writing and point to what may be lost as handwriting fades towards the margins.