A conversation about signatures (real ones, not digital) from our room in Campfire:
Jason F.: Don’t you think that would be a really cool niche side job for a designer? Custom designed signatures? The client would have to learn it, but I bet there’d be a decent market for a really cool signature.
Jamie D.: That is interesting, and actually w/ all the digital stuff you probably don’t even need to really sign it
Jason F.: Either way, I think it would be really cool to have a beautifully designed signature. One carefully considered, unique, and interesting.
Jason Z.: It’s actually surprising that never happened when calligraphy was in it’s hey-day. Surely everyone didn’t have a knack for graceful flourishes.
Matt L.: love the idea of a signature designer. wouldn’t even have to invoice you. he can just sign the check himself.
Rich S
on 25 Aug 10Sign of the times #1:
It took me until the end of the conversation to realize that they were talking about physical signatures instead of email ones.
facepalm
Javier Fernandez-Ivern
on 25 Aug 10In a way, this has already been done in the form of seals. They were used as signatures for millenia, and they were certainly designed.
As for an actual written signature, it’d feel incredibly awkward to sign with something somebody else made up. A signature, ugly or beautiful, is a very personal thing.
Jason Klug
on 25 Aug 10I’ve heard that this is exactly what Walt Disney did… he had one of his illustrators design a signature for his everyday personal use. It’s what ended up becoming the iconic “Disney” signature logo with which we’re all familiar.
Fred Schechter
on 25 Aug 10I think I’d pay for that! and yes,, Matt’s comment is the best!
Jason Klug
on 25 Aug 10@Javier – Good point! Personally, I’d love to see “seals” come back into vogue ; )
Learning a new signature wouldn’t be uncomfortable for more than a week or two, given some practice. The only reason our personal “natural” signatures are what they are is because each individual makes a decision to stick with one basic form and it evolves over years of use.
Having a designer suggest a new starting form is no less natural than when we first learned our current form (probably chosen by taste filtered through the limits of personal letter-forming ability). It’s likely we’ll choose a designed signature to match our taste, and, with enough repetition, we expand our letter-forming ability to suit.
Nick Campbell
on 25 Aug 10It would be really neat if someone were to do that and they took your signature and made it look like various objects. Say you were the queen mum and the signature was designed to look like a crown and that was adopted as her royal signature.
Maybe the signature wouldn’t be for things that truly need your signature but do show your approval of an ad or message or whatever. Like a personal endorsement. I wrote this letter. I approve this message. I sent this box. But I didn’t sign that confession.
You would have two sigs though that way.
Chris
on 25 Aug 10no need for this – my signature is already beautiful 8D
Jason Klug
on 25 Aug 10I’m going to contradict myself right away: a signature isn’t really even about letter-forming ability, because it can’t be said to be made up of letters. It’s more a release of muscle memory than actually spelling one’s name. At age 27, I don’t think I can even complete a full cursive alphabet.
Final thesis: a signature is personal taste filtered through line-forming ability, which one can certainly learn through repetition. A carefully-chosen designed signature can be more personal than a “natural” signature.
Adam
on 25 Aug 10This is a really interesting idea.. it makes me think of Mexico, where some of my family is from. There, you have your everyday signature, and then your “official” signature which is supposed to be really complicated and unreproducible. So the idea of having a unnatural signature or one that’s meant for a specific purpose isn’t that far off.
Plus, my own signature is horrible, so I really like the idea
Mark
on 25 Aug 10I would think if the purpose of a signature is more to leave a unique, hard to reproduce “mark” and not really about the legibility or form of the letters. To have a another party design what’s supposed to be uniquely yours and replicated only by you, then the whole notion of having another design it kinda falls flat in the intent.
Chris D
on 25 Aug 10If you have to learn it anyhow, wouldn’t the true value be in learning to write the entire font set? Then it wouldn’t just be your signature that looked good, everything you wrote would look good. Or at least better.
I went this route a few years ago. I found a font I liked then bought a pad of tracing paper. Then I practiced. Total cost, about $2 + time + handcramps.
Phil H
on 25 Aug 10You want a seal, as currently still used in Asia – the Chinese and Taiwanese use them to sign cheques, official documents etc. You get a seal made and then it is used (sometimes with a hand signature) to stamp your approval.
Inevitably, getting a seal made implies having it designed.
So, if I were you, I’d get a pad of ink, and go find a Chinese seal-maker who has migrated to your country.
Seal [wikipedia]
Eric Anderson
on 25 Aug 10I like the idea of having someone who knows about scripts to design a signature that uses the latin alphabet and is readable as such. But the strokes of those letters be influenced by other scripts such as the asian and middle eastern languages. So it would be readable by anybody that knew english as your name but would look Chinese or Arabic or whatever language you wanted it to feel like.
John
on 25 Aug 10Do signatures even matter even matter any more? It’s obvious that no one is checking what I scrawl when I “sign” the credit card machine at the supermarket, or the occasional check. However they do fraud detection nowadays, it evidently has very little or nothing to do with verifying the consistency of my signature.
Bill
on 25 Aug 10Can’t believe this hasn’t been mentioned, but the point of a signature it is a unique mark based on your personal style and written gesture.
Having your signature designed would be like getting plastic surgery on your face. Not for me, but maybe for high-profile public figures.
Kyle Steed
on 25 Aug 10Mr. Fried,
If you’re looking for someone, hit me up.
Daniel
on 25 Aug 10Matt’s comment at the end is the funniest thing I’ve heard all day. Thanks for brightening up the day
Beck
on 25 Aug 10Aside from the ‘seal’ that Phil mentioned, there is a stylized calligraphic symbol (or sequence of symbols) used as signatures in Japan and China called KAO.
KAO in Japan is in practice even these days. Politicians and celebrities order specially designated calligraphists to generate a signature for them. After KAO is generated, the actual owner needs considerable time for learning.
Tughra of Ottoman Empire, also seems to have similarities.
Caspar Chiquet
on 25 Aug 10This business already (still?) exists in China. Apart from seals, as mentioned above, there are people with good handwriting skills who will design a pretty signature for you in a script style you like. Such services range from high-end to people offering on pedestrian bridges for a couple of yuan.
BradM
on 26 Aug 10What would your job title be? Signature Designer? How much would you be willing to pay?
Here’s a small image of some sample images. I’m sure they’re not real, but I would think to maybe mimic one you like that works well with your name.
Save a few bucks.
http://www.enochutah.net/Fonts/FounderSignaturesMd.jpg
Daniel
on 26 Aug 10I’m actually using a signature as my main logo on my blog (link at my name).
Neil Kelty
on 26 Aug 10This reminds me of http://www.vletter.com/ – They take a handwriting sample from you and then draft a custom “font” that you can use to produce handwritten-looking notes on your computer.
Abhishek
on 26 Aug 10Guys, Your search for the solution ends here
www.signinstyle.com
Somebody thought of it already ;)
Enjoy your next Designer Signature!
Michi Marzo
on 26 Aug 10At first I liked your idea. Probably because it sounded surprising. Then I thought about it a bit deeper and understood the absurd behind it. If you get someone else to design your signature, it’s not your signature anymore.
David R
on 26 Aug 10It’s actually surprising that never happened when calligraphy was in it’s hey-day.
AnnWithNoE
on 26 Aug 10I love the absurdity of it. As individuals, we’re becoming more & more branded in the digital environment, why not take it to the next, silly level?
You could have customized flourishes & embellishments, that vary depending on the type of document or how pleased you were to be signing it. The subset of the custom designed signature would be customized initials. It could be a value-added for designers “Act now, and we’ll throw in 2 sets of initials at no extra cost! That’s a $19.99 value!”
Jake
on 30 Aug 10Don’t tell me you never tried to turn your name into a logo as a kid. I thought everyone who doodled did that!
This discussion is closed.