Making Your Mark

Signatures fit into design in a completely unique way. They can be found at the base or on the back of almost every work of art. Artists and designers, though, are not the only ones who create a signature; signatures are used every day to authorize, make agreements, and prove identity. Writing a signature is almost a thoughtless task: we are asked to do it so often that we forget what our signature really constitutes. The origin of a signature differs from person to person, and most are difficult to reproduce.

Handwriting on its own is unique to each individual; when asked to repeat the same letters over and over, sometimes multiple times a day, the letters take on a unique character. Human error means that signatures are never exactly the same, but of all the things we write, they come the closest. Our handwriting is our own design, and a signature is a summary of that design.

Letters are the most abstract of images: a picture of an eye and the word "eye" can mean the same thing to us, but the word is a much more abstract version of that thought. A signature is like an abstract picture of a person; the signature has as much identity as a picture does. This identity is utilized in many aspects of our society: signing bank documents, housing documents, birth certificates, and more. When one cannot agree to something in person, one can send his or her signature as proof of agreement. 

In the end, every person develops some sort of signature, some way of identifying themselves on paper.