I thought I'd make notebook covers with four different era's in different colours to show the evolution of penmanship. After drawing the images and making the covers I realised that this possible idea would not serve a good purpose as it wouldn't really be promoting or encouraging handwriting. If i choose to make a promotional item for handwriting, this may not be a solid enough idea.
I need to decide whether I want to PROMOTE handwriting again, or encourage it to those who don't handwrite as much.
Meanwhile, I started researching different pens - Over time handwriting started getting more technical and handwriting became more of a SPEED thing to get something done fast as oppose to an art. It's where a pre-historic time transforms into the roaring IT era.
Evolution of Pens - Uses and Benefits
- Stress Relief
- Emotional
- Therapy
- Sincerity in Letters
- Human
- Freehand Writing
- Calligraphy - Freehand, Doodle, Pen Sketches
History
4000BC - Man scratches surface of moist clay tablet with bronze or bone.
3000BC - Egyptians developed a form of writing with pictures. For writing on papyrus scroll scribes used thin reed brushes or reed pens.
1300BC - Romans have been developing a form of writing, where they scribed into thin sheets of wax (on wooden tablets). Romans used a metal stylus. When they no longer needed the writing, they rubbed it out with the flat end of a stylus.
600 - 1800s - The Europeans found that writing on parchment with a quill pen alter the style of their writing. At first they used to use capital letters all the time, but later they developed faster styles with small letters. Quill pens were the writing instrument from 600 - 1800AD
1800 - 1850s - A metal pen point has been patented in 1803, but patent was not commercially exploited. By 1850, the Quill Pen usage was fading and the quality of steel ribs had been improved by tipping them with hard alloys of iridium, rhodium and osmium.
1884 - Lewis Edson Waterman, insurance broken invent the first proper fountain pen.
1888 - 1916 - The Principle of a ballpoint pen actually dates from the late 19th century when John Loud took out patents in 1888 for a product to mark leather and in 1916 by Van Vechten Riesberg.
1940s - 1943 the first commercial models were made of the Biro Ball Point Pen. The Ballpoint pen is more rugged than the fountain pen.
1953 - First inexpensive ballpoint pens were available when the french Baron, Bich, developed the industrial process for manufacturing ball point pens that lowered the cost unit dramatically.
1960s - Papermate's Flair was among the first felt-tip pens to hit the U.S. market in the 1960's. Following the initial success with felt-tips, manufacturers branched out with a variety of fibre - tipped instruments.
1980 - 1990 - Rollerball pens employ a mobile ball and a liquid ink to produce a smoother line.
Present - Rubberized writing instruments are commonly used by the companies to reduce the grip.
All this information on the evolution of pens is really fascinating and interesting.
Researching the impact of writing using different pens
Handwriting has turned into more of a speed issue where people just want to write something quick as oppose to it being an art where your thoughts just flow. I started looking at different pens and found that the type of pen you use has a huge impact on your writing speed, stamina and style. The chart below describes the pros and cons of the three main types of pens:
As you can see, fountain or rollerball pens are more difficult to use and cost more, but you'll experience the least amount of friction and have the smoothest glide. This equates to faster writing time, less strain and longer endurance. In my experience, i can write almost 10% faster when using a fountain pen over a ball pen.
Thus was looking at possibly making a series of notebooks that come with a specific pens. After researching the different speeds of pens, i realised it would be interesting to use a combination of speed and some sort of evolution of pens.
The 4 pens I've decide i could provide
-The Quill with an ink bottle
- Fountain pen
- Ball Point
- Gel
Supplying a pen would have two functionalities. Supplying a pen and blank paper enforces using it and writing in it. Secondly what if the user was to find different fun facts and useful information about that particular pen and uses and benefits of handwriting?
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