Throughout our nation’s classrooms, cursive handwriting instruction is no longer mandatory. Forty-five states, including Indiana, have adopted the Common Core State Standard Initiative, a standard that prepares students for their futures. The initiative leaves cursive handwriting out of school curriculum, and in turn, numerous school districts have been replacing cursive with keyboarding. The key cannot simply replicate many of cursive’s benefits. As cursive becomes a vanishing art, Sans Cursive strives to illustrate the significance of cursive as a necessary skill, highlighting its historical importance and its role in self-expression, brain stimulation, and fine motor skill development.

As a graphic designer, I am exploring how design has power to influence thoughts and actions. Through various mechanisms, design may hold the abilityto teach, persuade, impact, or otherwise guide in decision-making, and ultimately, through these processes, help foster change. Through this campaign, I want individuals to engage themselves with the issue and realize the big picture: we cannot simply replace our basic skills with technology. Postcards allowed viewers to interact with the issue by practicing their own cursive handwriting and writing a postcard to the National Governers Association, the governing body that helped form the legislation.

Hopefully this project will spark interest in keeping cursive alive even if it cannot be taught by the state.