1. Introduction

As digital typing supplanted handwriting as the primary mode of expression, humanity gained efficiency but sacrificed the individuality of personal expression of writing. The evolution of written communication now presents a curious paradox. Before the mass spread of typing, each person possessed a distinctive handwriting style – often several – that served as a visual fingerprint of their identity (Srihari et al. 2002). While solving certain technical challenges, the standardisation of digital typography has confined our typographic expression to a limited set of operating system fonts (Granneman, n.d.).

The doctrine of perfect type set block Pecina (2011) – which demands text appear as an uninterrupted, homogeneous block – continues to dominate our typographic landscape ¹. This self-imposed constraint, whilst ensuring pristine legibility, enforces a rigid view of communicational design that results in oppression. The digital age, rather than liberating our expression, has merely automated this doctrine’s enforcement, resulting in texts that are flawlessly readable yet curiously devoid of character. Behind ensuring legibility is nothing more than the industrial optimisation of conveying textual communication. However, the premise of smooth reading as the best optimal way to convey the message and eventually help to memorise is a strongly disputable position (Cochell 2020; Wallace, Dobres, and Sawyer 2021; Sheppard et al. 2023).

This industrial standardisation of typing has effectively defeated the nuanced personal expression that characterised handwriting. The rich variations of handwritten text – those subtle indicators of personality, mood, and intent – have found no true digital equivalent. In the current paradigm, even the most intimate digital communications are rendered in the same fonts used for corporate memoranda and shopping lists. As if the only identity that can be expressed with custom typography was corporate identity (“Introducing TikTok Sans: TikTok’s New Bespoke Typeface” 2019; Gordon 2021; Goldrick 2024).

The implications extend beyond mere aesthetics. Consider the case of digital romance: where love letters once carried the intimate tremor of handwriting, dating app messages arrive in the same antiseptic system font used for corporate emails. This technological flattening of expression represents more than an inconvenience – it amounts to a subtle form of cultural censorship, where the medium systematically strips away layers of personal meaning that handwriting once conveyed.

In its genuine naivete, the motivation driving this research stems from the tension between industrial standardisation and cultural diversity. A possibility of restoring the voice of writing to typing and the intonation of speaking to reading. Generative AI presents an intriguing solution to restore individuality to digital communication. Much as digital cameras democratise photography, generative AI can democratise type design.