Can graphic designers spell?

I constantly misspell designer. Or rather I mistype desigenr. See? I did it again, and that was honestly not intentional. I think that graphic designers are often accused of bad spelling and the reasons are clear. We think visually. It's not that we can't spell, or won't learn how to spell. It's just that our brains think faster than we can type. How many of you can actually touch type properly? Probably not many.

In fact, I made a point of never learning how to touch-type. It was a scheme when I was a junior designer to avoid being seen as a typesetter and being given boring work. I really annoyed a number of employers who didn't understand what my job role was, but it did the trick. I now type very quickly, but certainly not using all of my fingers and the typos are generally strewn all over the page. Luckily, that's what spell-checkers are for...

It's amazing how many common misspellings of design there are. Some of my common typos are degnier and desing. And let's not forget desigenr resourec. Or should that be degnie recourse, or recourses? A few others that I've come across include; deign and perhaps desgn - which is more about missing out letters, deisgn, desingers and also dseign - which is about the left hand getting in quicker than the right hand, desigm - missing the target, and I occasionally also come across desing or also desgin.

On a related and more serious note, there is anecdotal evidence about the high percentage of graphic designers that are dyslexic. An interesting project was carried out by Natascha Frensch, a Dutch graphic designer and typographer who is herself dyslexic. She developed a new sans-serif typeface designed specifically to help people with dyslexia to improve reading and writing. The sans-serif typeface is called Read.

Spelling has often been a bone of contention, particularly in publishing environments, between editorial teams and creative departments. Obviously, it is an editors job to oversee the finished copy. But what role should the graphic designer have in ensuring that documents go out with correct spelling? It's certainly an advantage if you are a freelancer. Regardless of whether the client has signed off the project or not.

While we are on the subject. If anyone fancies an argument, there is an interesting discussion in the design forums entitled; Should designers listen to Editors? Another relevent forum discussions is designing for dyslexia.