In one of my many attempts to improve upon the design of an already highly reformed creation, I decided to re-write the alphabet. Not changing the letters or their order (although I do have strong feelings that certain letters are useless), I instead tried to reduce the overall numbers of lines needed to draw each letter.
The thought process behind the design is to have paper already printed with a grid, appropriately sized for one letter in each box. Then, with the border of the letter already done, all you would have to do is inscribe the inner parts of the letter, giving it distinction from every other letter. Essentially it’s just taking bubble letters and squeezing them into rectangle shapes, like a cat stuffed into a small box. Hopefully this will reduce the number of lines needed, and make writing quicker and more efficient.
In my design, seen below, some of the letters closely resemble the actual letter, while others are highly stylized. Each letter is unique, and it actually works quite well. I timed myself writing the alphabet twice as fast as I possibly could, normally and with the box alphabet method. It took me 29.4 seconds for regular handwriting, and 31.9 seconds with the box method. Given that I have been writing the alphabet for many years and just tried the new method as of today, those results show some potential.
As for pitfalls, there is a pretty steep learning curve, since writing letters in a different way than you’ve been taught all your life is difficult. Also, if you get near the end of a line on the page and you are writing a long word, you can easily run out of spaces and you can’t squeeze it in like with normal writing.
I have come to the conclusion that this method is less efficient, although it does have two applications: secret messages and a cool-looking font. Write the letters without the boxes, and it looks like some crazy foreign language.
If you are interested in trying writing this alphabet yourself, I have graciously included a sheet of grid paper for you to use.
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