Making Primarium

By Pooja Saxena

Primarium is a pioneering, global research project that answers the question, “How is Latin-based handwriting taught in primary schools?” As an educational initiative by TypeTogether, it brings together various methods and approaches of handwriting instruction, spanning five continents and about one-quarter of the world.

Devising a research methodology

For the success of the project, it was essential to put together a team that was up for the challenge. We began with members of TypeTogether’s core group: Veronika Burian, José Scaglione, Pooja Saxena and Cecilia Brarda. We then included Sandro Fetter, who is professor of design at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), for his the domain expertise and since he studied school handwriting for his doctorate. Later, we also brought on Caroline Schäfer, a graduate student and teaching assistant at UFRGS to help us prepare our research for publication.

We realised almost immediately that the information readily available for different countries varied greatly, and it was imperative our research did not become biased as a result. To ensure consistency, we first conducted preliminary research for a small number of countries with assistance from Sandro Fetter. The results helped us create a list of research questions we wanted to investigate in each region. After receiving and incorporating critical feedback on this list from Petra Černe Oven, we began using the questions to propel our work forward. Once these questions had been applied to more countries, we took a step back again to evaluate if they were meticulous enough to produce consistent results across countries and researchers, and then fine-tuned them one more time. This iterative process helped us devise and implement a robust methodology that would, in turn, produce rigorous research.
 

The issue of handwriting instruction in primary schools finds itself at the intersection of various specialised fields: education and policy, history and culture, and of course calligraphy, among others. Bringing these subjects together required expanding our sources of information to as large a pool as possible. Sandro emphasised, “Integrating knowledge from multiple fields is key to understanding and shaping the future of handwriting education in the digital era.” Not only that, he reiterated, “Design can play an important role in supporting educators by developing effective teaching methods, strategies, and assistive tools for early childhood handwriting skills.”

Legislative documents helped us understand the educational aspirations of different countries and provided context for what we saw happening on the ground. Teaching resources, like textbooks and handouts studied in tandem with national curricula and classroom syllabi, provided a glimpse into how policy transformed into tangible tools for educators. Material produced by private educational publishers, including marketing information, allowed us to grasp how handwriting was being taught when governments took a hands-off approach toward its instruction.

All this desk research was complemented by interviews with teachers, parents, educationists, administrators, and designers. Each person we spoke to provided a unique perspective that enriched our understanding of handwriting education in their region.

From research to writing

On the website, our research is neatly divided into two interconnected pathways: either exploring by country or diving straight into learning about the most important approaches to handwriting instruction in each region.

The essays for every country come with a detailed and diligently referenced bibliography, illustrated with teaching samples from historical and contemporary sources. Along with that, there is background information on the most important language in each country, which helps contextualise the linguistic identity of the region. Whenever possible, our focus was on illuminating local historical or contemporary figures in each country who had a lasting impact on how handwriting is taught. Similarly, we made an effort to trace threads through history to find how styles and approaches traveled between regions.

The handwriting models, which are exemplars distilled from our analysis of popular approaches, are all represented through original infographics that highlight their most compelling and notable features. “With these concise visual snapshots of each key handwriting model,” Pooja believes, “it will be easy for fellow researchers to compare and contrast them and appreciate how traditions of handwriting instruction have developed in different parts of the world.”

A Home for Primarium

We reached out to Elena Ramirez of Ashler Design to help us craft a website for the project. Like our writing, we wanted the website to be inviting and usable to all readers, whether they were educators and parents, researchers, or lifelong learners interested in the subject.

There were three main goals we wanted Ashler Design to consider: (1) having ease of adding new content since the research is ongoing; (2) ensuring intuitive navigation so the website is friendly to all readers; and (3) creating a way to access all the related information without forcing the user to change pages every time they wanted to dig deeper.

First, Elena put in place a flexible WordPress CMS to meet our needs of adding more content to the website as our research grew and evolved. Next, she devised a fluid navigation system using AJAX. Finally, she developed an underlying structure, which always keeps the main content on the page while allowing new information tabs to be opened on top of it.

Overall, the final design of the website offers easy navigation and focuses on a warm appearance that maintains a fine balance between serious research and a playful sensibility, evoking children’s handwriting and the innocence associated with it.

The Primarium logo is designed by Petra Dočekalová, who based the wordmark on various drawings she made with a round squeezer marker. “The goal,” she said, “was to create simple and kind letterforms, playful and fun for everyone.” The letters are slanted backwards giving the logo a nice rhythm and smooth loops.

Innovating with variable fonts

In creating Primarium’s website, we collaborated with Ashler Design to push the limits of what could be accomplished by using typefaces in new and innovative ways. The website uses Belarius, a variable font from TypeTogether’s own catalogue, and employs typography that showcases dynamically-changing letterforms to guide readers through the website navigation. In response to mouse interactions, navigational text smoothly transforms from sans serif to serif, and subtle changes in letter widths and spacing reinforce the movement of text during page transitions.

What’s next?

This is far from the end for Primarium. It is a living educational project our team is looking forward to extending, both in terms of scope and reach. Keep an eye out for our upcoming Playwrite font family, designed to suit the needs of handwriting instruction for different regions around the world. We have also already begun producing a book based on our extensive research, and TypeTogether is actively seeking new partners to extend Primarium’s research coverage to more scripts and countries.