Rosemary Sassoon

Teach Yourself Better Handwriting

In Marion Richardson: Her Life and Her Contribution to Handwriting, Rosemary Sassoon’s recognizes Richardson’s groundbreaking contribution to the freeing of the teaching of child art and her two handwriting schemes – the main one based on her observations of children’s pattern paintings and the natural movement of young children’s hands. In both areas of her work she changed attitudes worldwide. The book promotes the value and creativity of child art and writing viewed as a natural progression from pattern. Sassoon focuses on Richardson’s personal life and character, and is fully illustrated. It is based partly on her own writing, with letters and personal recollections from those who knew her, worked with her, her students and those who carried on her work and kept her legacy alive after her death. It deals with how she developed her techniques of encouraging children to express their creativity in art freeing them from the prevailing strictures. Much original research has been undertaken for this section, with the help of archivists in several major libraries. Searches reveal that the handwriting archives have previously not been considered as important as the art aspects so have often not even been catalogued. This will mean that many facts are emerging that have not been known before. The volume benefits from illustrations from her schemes and numerous handwriting examples.

Her Life and Her Contribution to Handwriting

Marion Richardson

Rosemary Sassoon alerts those involved in computer interface design that the skills of layout, spacing and typeface are equally vital in the construction of onscreen layouts as they are on the printed page. This second volume of Computers and Typography reflects the new developments in this rapidly-changing field. It complements, without in any way supplanting, Volume 1.

Computers and Typography 2

This fascinating and wide-ranging book charts developments in the teaching and study of handwriting over the course of the twentieth century. The book shows how changing educational policies, economic forces and inevitable technological advance have combined to alter the priorities and form of handwriting. This 'long and sometimes sorry story' tells also of the sheer pain and hard work of children forced to follow the style of the day, and of the reformers who have sought to simplify the teaching and learning of handwriting over the years. Illustrated throughout with examples from copybooks and personal handwriting from across the world, the book is a compelling historical record of techniques, styles and methods.

Handwriting of the Twentieth Century

This collection draws attention to the most important issues for the production of good typography, and demonstrates why the lessons that have been learned in the past five centuries of traditional typography cannot be ignored. The chapters are contributed by experts in their field and will make impactful reading for any reader with an interest in teaching and design.

Computers and Typography

Do many of us sit down before retirement and talk about what the change in our lives might mean? For that matter, do any of us realise what real old age might involve until it is upon us? Few of us seem to visualise what it might be like growing older, or what we might do to prepare ourselves for the time when we may become less physically active or have fewer interests to occupy us. A Short Guide to Growing Older is a concise and inspiring guide by Rosemary Sassoon to encourage readers to live the best that they can do in their later years. The book covers planning for your future, harnessing your creativity, getting involved in new business or social activities, volunteering and connecting with the community, the benefits of recording family history, no longer getting old but ‘being old’ and then finally, decision time.

A Short Guide to Growing Older

Analysing a discipline, this text considers handwriting in its scientific and artistic contexts and reflects a decade's work in both educational and hospital settings.

The Art and Science of Handwriting

Albertine Gaur

Iconography as a crucial form of communication long before computers, and the myriad ways in which signs and symbols are integrated into the age of digital information, form the two parts of this book.

Pre-history to the Computer Age

Signs, Symbols and Icons

The history of formal calligraphy has been thoroughly documented, and the demise of what people see as beautiful handwriting is frequently deplored, but the details of the teaching of this skill during this century have gone almost unrecorded. Everyday handwriting is ephemeral and school books soon disappear. The main purpose of this book is to create a historical record, however, techniques are illustrated that may be useful for teachers today, while the ever-changing views of the stylists provide examples, as well as a warning, to those who plan for the future. An individual sample of handwriting reflects the writer's training, character and environment. Collectively, the handwriting of a population of any period is a reflection of educational thinking, but overall it is influenced and ultimately moulded by economic need, social habits and contemporary taste. Within the short space of the period covered by this present study, the changing educational policies, economic forces and inevitable technological advance radically altered the priorities and form of handwriting. These changes show in the models and examples throughout this book as an inexorable (though not entirely smooth) journey towards speed and efficiency. The downgrading of skill training and the freeing of children’s creative talent have done the rest. You might say that at the end of the century we have the handwriting we deserve. That statement can be read several ways. It would be a pity to think that our students do not deserve to be taught strategies that enable them to write fast without pain. It might, however, mean that we are edging towards the flexible, efficient, personal handwriting needed to deal with the rapidly changing situation that is likely to face us in the next century.

Rosemary Sassoon

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