Philip’s doodles
Sunday, 8 October 2006 21:15(With apologies for today’s spamminess; I wanted to separate the different thoughts into separate journal entries.)
During meetings, I often doodle on a piece of paper—anything from geometric figures to Chinese/Japanese characters. I like to think it helps me concentrate, especially if the topic does not require immediate input from me.
Here’s an example of such a doodle page (with a little bit redacted; the blurring at the bottom and near the top is due to a bad picture, though):
I particularly liked the way my handwriting turned out in the word Pflichtenheft; here’s a closeup:
I hadn’t set out to make it especially legible or pretty or anything, but after I had written it, it struck me that I didn’t think I’d mind reading text set in a font made out of that. It seemed to have a kind of loose, readable sans-serif quality, a kind of je ne sais quoi that I can’t quite articulate.


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Date: Sunday, 8 October 2006 20:33 (UTC)Whenever I try chinese or japanese the signs turn out really ugly.
Arabic (that's what I think it is?) I haven't tried so far.
I prefer my russian handwriting over my german one, probably because I am trying harder.
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Date: Sunday, 8 October 2006 22:53 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 9 October 2006 04:08 (UTC)As I said, I hadn't consciously set out to produce any specific effect, and it just kind of turned out like that.
Free variation in glyph forms, or something like that.
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Date: Sunday, 8 October 2006 23:59 (UTC)Doesn't anyone notice you're doodling so much during meetings? Most people would probably think you're distracted and *not* paying attention.
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Date: Monday, 9 October 2006 04:10 (UTC)Hm... I never thought about that (or worried about it).
I suppose I hoped people would judge my by my performance rather than the appearance.
(I've seen others doodle a little as well, though that's no excuse, of course. And it does tend to take up less space.)