human writing

see also typing

Writing “by hand” is how we most often think of the act. The hand is symbolically connected to the act of writing, to the extent that we still use icons of the hand-held utensils to represent it graphically—a ballpoint pen, a pencil, even an old-fashioned quill and nib, all often associated with letter-writing. Slowly, this iconography is being replaced by another symbol; the keyboard, signalling the contemporary dominance of typography on writing.

Image: ‘Proper posture for writing with pen’, from Drucker, J. (1999) The alphabetic labyrinth: the letters in history and imagination. London: Thames & Hudson