Talk Paper Scissors

👉🏽 Manicule 👈🏽

Diana Varma Season 1 Episode 281

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Allow me to point something out…

From Medieval manuscripts to 19th-century advertising, modern interfaces, and emoji culture, this episode follows the curious history of the iconic pointing hand, commonly referred to as the “manicule”. 

Inspired by a letterpress project created for the Canadian Letterpress Alliance, I step back in time to print postcards on a 170-year-old press at Mackenzie House Toronto, using historic wood type found in a cabinet of typographic curiosities. 

We explore its origins as a reader’s mark, its many aliases, its evolution through print and persuasion, and its quiet persistence today, right down to the moment I realized that my cursor is a modern-day manicule.

💅🏽 See the final print and process at talkpaperscissors.info/letterpress



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