Pretoria-based company Edu-fonts PTY LTD publishes two suites of typefaces for handwriting instruction in primary schools. Edu-Aid Grade 1 features unjoined geometric letters for Grade 1 students, while Edu-Aid Cursive is for teaching from Grade 2 onwards. Both typefaces were designed in 2011 by André Trollip, following the requirements outlined by Karen Engelbrecht, a primary school teacher and Head of Department Foundation Phase at Loreto School Queenswood in Pretoria.
These fonts are used by South Africa’s most important educational publishers and content providers including Funda Wande, and E-Classroom, as well as teachers who make and sell teaching aids through their own blogs. Other popular publication, The Happy Handwriter’s cursive book uses a similar font from an unknown author: ABC Cursive.
Edu-Aid Cursive presents slanted and fully-joined continuous cursive letters. Lowercase ones are narrow, have stroke contrast and a somewhat mechanical appearance. Their ascenders and descenders are medium-sized and looped. Connecting strokes are straight and diagonal, and go from the end of a letter to the beginning of the next. Some recognisable features of the uppercase include the shape of G and the similar construction of letters U and V.
