25. MATERIALS WORKSHOP TWO

The following task for the workshop required us to use our selected materials to make words, but maintaining its primary function for which it is intended for. Or something like that? The explanation sounded awfully 'wishy washy' and I'm not sure I quite 'got' it but I gave it a go. With tracing paper my choice, I wanted to create the word "trace". However, by definition, tracing paper needs to remain as unhindered as possible to retain its transparency that allows the tracing to happen. So my challenge was to manipulate the material in a way that didn't tamper with its physicality, or by as little as possible. I didn't find that easy, but I did decide to use folding techniques to create shapes for letters so that it could still be unfolded to again be a blank sheet for tracing with. Not sure it fulfils the brief but in some ways I have at least overcome what I saw as an initial problem to have an outcome at all.

> Read the first entry here.

24. UNIQUE HANDWRITING

So it occurred to me whilst tracing that handwriting is rather interesting. I write this with no research undertaken, but there are a lot of traits that make up our handwriting. Different qualities and tendencies constitute how our hands move and how this in turn reflects in our writing, naturally. What is it about each of our handwriting that makes it unique? Sure there can be similarities between people, and indeed dissimilarities between one's own writing, but I'm sure there are fundamental characteristics that make up our own handwriting fingerprint, if you like – just like a typeface does. It's fascinating to me how letters of completely unique shapes to each other (A to Z) can be designed to be recognisable as a font family, whereby all characters so successfully 'fit' with each other. How?

Tracing over somebody else's writing is a simple way of replicating, but aside from the tracing paper itself, what distinguishes it from the replica from the original, if anything?

> Read about the Materials workshop here and here.