Hand lettering vs digital tablets for journaling - which teaches you more? I tried both for 30 days each.

Last month I did a 30 day challenge with hand lettering using just a dip pen and ink on my journal pages (a $15 Speedball set). The month before that I used a $40 stylus on an old tablet. Hand lettering forced me to slow way down and plan each stroke, and my pages looked rougher but had this personal feel. The digital side let me undo mistakes and try 50 fonts in five minutes, but I ended up just scrolling more than writing (you know how that goes). So here's my debate: does the convenience of digital help you practice more or does the friction of analog make you learn deeper skills? Has anyone else hit a plateau with one method and swapped to the other unexpectedly?

3 comments

3 Comments

anthony_campbell8824d ago

...and funny enough I found myself doing something similar but with fountain pens and a cheap Bluetooth keyboard last year. I was deep into those handwriting practice sheets for about two weeks, thinking I was really honing in on my letterforms. Then I decided to try typing out my daily entries on my phone just to see if I could write faster. Three days later I was back to the pen because I realized I was missing the feeling of ink on paper, not the speed. That actual friction you mentioned, where the nib catches on the fibers, it forces me to actually think about what I'm writing instead of just hammering out words. Your mileage may vary but for me the slower method stuck around longer.

reesel5024d ago

Nah, gotta disagree. Digital helped me way more. The undo button is huge. Lets you try crazy stuff without messing up your whole page. You learn faster when you're not scared to make mistakes.

daniel_martin21d ago

That digital undo button is a safety net for sure, but @anthony_campbell88 is onto something about the friction being valuable. The thing nobody's mentioning is that both methods actually teach you different kinds of patience. Digital teaches you to experiment without fear, while physical writing teaches you to commit to each word before it hits the page. I split the difference by mapping out rough ideas as voice memos on my phone, then rewriting them by hand once I know what I want to say. That way I get the fast brainstorming without losing the focus that comes from ink and paper.