Sinistral Hands

There’s a line from Rutherford Craze’s latest note that hit me like a piano tumbling out of a six story building:

When we ask Midjourney to draw an ox, it does not think of home. ChatGPT will never invent a new calligraphy technique, because it has no wrists to feel uncomfortable.

That link points to Phaedra Charles’s Undercase Type and a beautiful thing she printed called A Guide to Sinistral Hand. It’s a small booklet, half type specimen and half essay, that reimagines type design and lettering from the view of left-handed folks:

Left-handed writers have a notoriously difficult time with handwriting, and for good reason: like a pair of scissors, the alphabet is designed for right-handed use.

[...] If part of the beauty of handwriting lies in its ability to express the habits, experiences, and perspectives of the individual, why are left-handed people expected to hide their handedness by mimicking right-handed models?

Sadly it isn’t in print but the PDF is still available—and beware! As I was reading this thing it felt like not one but several pianos were descending on me from above, like this Steinway-shaped fact:

In Hebrew, the direction of reading does not follow the direction of writing, meaning the letters do not point to the following letter. We will call this counter-momentum writing.

Counter-momentum! Wonderful. We will certainly call it that. But what makes Phaedra’s argument even more compelling is that the text is printed in a typeface that follows these principles, moving in counter-momentum, and I think it looks lovely and cool and new. Despite the booklet being printed way back in 2018.

Anyway, it’s extraordinarily rare for a typeface to open a door in my mind, to push back against how I see the world, for me not to categorize it in an already existing room in my head and firmly seal the door behind it. But Phaedra’s work here is exciting and fresh and reminds me that new things are still possible! New letters, new ideas, are ~~right~~ left out there in the open.

Oh and Undercase Type’s Mollydooker takes this idea a bit further as a left-handed brush script, reminding me somewhat of left-leaning italics. But the rest of Phaedra’s work is equally compelling, too: just take a look at Ritme or Mausoleum, I dare you, and try not to be impressed.