Who writes TODAY in All capitals on paper?
What happens more often is my sloppy 6 and 0 look too similar.
I’ve picked up a habit to (sometimes) write in all caps. On the flipside, I’ve picked up some strategies to differentiate letters and numbers from each other:
- 1 would have the top serif if it needs to be differentiated from lowercase
l
. - 2 would start like a question mark, and then continuing on with a horizontal line, something like: ʔ︭
- 5 would be written in two separate strokes, the top one from left to right, and the second from top-left straight down, then a semi-circle going clockwise
- 6 would be written in one smooth stroke from top-right going counter-clockwise down, then up halfway, then intersecting itself at the bottom rather than bottom-left. (Kinda like φ)
- 7 would have the middle bar (differentiating it from a 1)
- 9 would have two strokes, first is a loop starting from top-right counter-clockwise almost meeting itself; second stroke goes from where the first one ends straight down-left-ish
- 0 would have a light stroke going from top-right to bottom-left
- D would be two strokes, kinda like this:
|>
- I would have the top and bottom serifs
- J would have its top serif and its tail emphasized and angular, kinda like this: ˧˩̅ (I really hope the unicode characters show up properly)
- S would have its upper part smaller, and its lower part larger and more emphasized, so that it’d look more like a coiled snake.
- U would look like my lowercase u (with the right vertical downward stroke).
- V would be written in two strokes: top-left to bottom, and top-right to bottom.
- X is also written in two strokes: top-left to bottom-right, and top-right to bottom-left
- Z would optionally have the middle bar (
Ƶ
), but it usually doesn’t need it to differentiate from2
I do the bars for 7, Z and the Ø for 0 when I’m worried about confusion. D I make sure the bar is straight or concave, in two strokes.
Also my 1s and lowercase Ls are both single stroke so to differentiate I make it look more like a mirrored J.
My 5 and S look the same
My 5s are apparently unreadable for most people. Whenever someone asks me what that sign or letter is on anything I wrote I will say it’s a 5 without looking. They’ll say how I didn’t even look. But it’s always correct.
Then I try to erase the whole word and rewrite it, but you can still see the D after I erase it so it looks even worse
Every damn time…
Just do the same to the other letters, so it looks like a stylistic choice.