Cursive For Dysgraphia (BA Hons Project) - Workbook Layouts

“An exploration of using instructional graphic design and calligraphy principles in aiding recently diagnosed dysgraphia”

Frankly, this was the most challenging and arduous project I had embarked on during my career, both academically and professionally, to date. Even so, I don’t regret any of it. From the highs of conceptual development to the lows of drudging through countless academic articles to back up my design decisions, my journey through this project was something I look back fondly on; if not only for all it taught me about the creative process, at the scale and depth required for academia 👨‍🎓

There aren’t enough characters available to share it all with you here, but on my website I aim to take you through the general processes I went through to bring myself and my work across the finish line, and to hold in my hands the final result of two years of hard work, many late nights staring at dimly lit computer screens (and pretending I didn’t have a full day of work the next day), and weekends spent drawing with a bottomless cup of coffee to my left.

I developed a very comprehensive dissertation, that explored dysgraphia’s origins and potential treatment scenarios. I then developed, as my main deliverable, a procedural cursive handwriting workbook, influenced and driven by principles of instructional design, and exercise design frameworks 📖

Built from the ground up, specifically for learners with dysgraphia and (often) co-occurring dyslexia, my workbook was also designed in conjunction with a style guide built specifically for it.

On top of these, I designed a basic lowercase alphabet by hand, as a vital learning tool within the workbook, and a series of hand-lettered quotes sprinkled though that provided me both an opportunity for artistic expression and encouragement throughout the workbook ✍️

These quotes were also designed within a hand-drawn repeatable pattern, with changing colours to fit their place within the workbook 🌈

All of those artistic details I’ll share in my next post, but for now, I wanted to share the fact that this project now finally exists outside of my hard drive. And I’m super proud to be sharing it with you! 🙏