Volume 17–1 (Low Res).pdf

Professor Martin Andersch of the
University of Hamburg is worried. He
sees a whole generation of young
people with disgraceful handwriting
taking their places in the world.
If their writing is at all legible, it is
generally lacking in any esthetic qual-
ity or character. Though he blames
the educational system, not the stu-
dents, for the neglect of handwriting,
he sees the failure as a threat to our
visual environment, our culture and
our civilization.
"Lighten up, Professor," we're
tempted to say."So the kids don't write
Palmer Method. What of it? They have
typewriters, word processors, trans-
fer type..!' As for the esthetics, we
are past the crude digital type of early
computers. These days we have
dozens of tasteful typefaces and hun-
dreds of fonts to choose from.
Though he may sound like an old
diehard, the good professor, who
teaches Design and Lettering, is not at
war with technology, old or new. He
just wants to be sure our advanced
communication techniques don't drag
us down into esthetic mediocrity. In
his recently published book, Symbols
Signs Letters, he reminds us that all
the beautiful typography we have
today grew out of beautiful writing.
When Gutenberg's movable type came
along, "the most gifted writers in
Europe dedicated themselves to the
challenge and developed the outstand-
ing type of their time. Typesetting
was an elaboration of the art of
handwriting:'
But in our computer age, Andersch
points out,"there is a stagnation in
the art of writing!' He sees the same
forms and shapes developed within the
last few hundred years being refined,
adapted and recycled for electronic
reproduction. Where are the new
ideas? The new esthetics? According
to Andersch, the high resolution
printing and greater economy are not
enough. He pleads for expanded
esthetic awareness to keep us from
being bogged down in boredom or,
worse still, enslaved in mediocrity. He
hopes that competent writers and
designers will save the day, but "it is
imperative that we re-evaluate our
attitude toward writing:'
With that as his premise, the pro-
fessor designed a unique program to
sensitize his students to words and
letterforms, and to teach them to
write all over again.
Starting from Scratch
His main objective is "to free my stu-
dents from indifference and ugliness
caused by incompetent previous
instruction:' and to make writing a
joyous process.
For their first exercise the stu-
dents gather an unorthodox assort-
ment of writing implements such as
leaves, reeds, twigs, stones, shells,
wood and metal shavings, wire loops,
paper clips, nails, ribbons, wires and
strings. With the instruction to "forget
everything you've learned before!'
they dip their chosen instruments into
rich black ink and create rhythmic
patterns on smooth wrapping paper.
Though the scratches and pat-
terns convey no rational meaning,
they do communicate something of
the writer's emotional or contempla-
tive state. The students eagerly con-
tinue the exploration, writing while
listening to music, singing, even
breathing and screaming in synchrony
with their body movements.
Some students find it hard to free
themselves of ingrained writing pat-
terns. But with repetition they make
continuous progress toward creating
truly original, beautiful forms.
In the next phase, they concen-
trate on a single character, 2 x 3 inches,
written on standard 8 1 /2 x 11-inch
paper. The shift from lines of aimless
writing to the single character intensi-
fies their interest and efforts. Then,
still focusing on single characters, they
arrange them in a series on a single
page; it begins to look like viable text.
Finally the playful exercises and
experiments culminate in the chal-
lenge to create an expressive mark,
sign or symbol. With a specially cho-
sen writing tool and ink color, the
students let preconceived images fly
out the window, and they proceed to
invent forms that glide, dance, float,
stomp, explode, charge or wriggle
across the page.
On to Italic
For their first experience with formal
calligraphy, Professor Andersch intro-
duces the students to italic. Their
preliminary rhythmic exercises have
prepared their hands for this free-
moving writing style. But now for the
first time the students guide their
pens in disciplined movements to
shape real letters. They use light-
weight pens with steel nibs and write
on graph paper which helps guide
them in the spacing, size and angle of
the letters. Later they go on to work
After the initial experi-
ments in rhythmic
writing, students con-
centrate on creating a
single esthetic form
and composition, still
ignoring content.
Kirsten
Siedenburg-Everd,
1st semester
29