I thought I’d share this, it’s taken from a patent from 1937. Was this a typical thing in patent illustrations/engineering diagrams around that time, or was this just a bored technical illustrator doing some experimental typography?
Typophile
Hand-drawn letterforms from a 1937 patent
People did appear to have much more regimented handwriting back then, and were especially ceremonial on patent applications, but this looks rather wild and extreme even within that subculture.
Do you have more samples of this?
i’ve spent a lot of time at Google Patents in the past, and I’ve seen this particular style ... a quick search finds two kinda similar ... but there are a bunch of varied styles — different draftsmen trained differently.
it’d be great if someone did some more research in this area.
Captured from web.archive.org on 23 Oct 2008. view this capture