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By Lydia Patrick
Life & Trends Reporter
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A neighbor’s handwritten warning note has gone viral after Reddit users fixated on one unexpected detail: the writer’s extremely unusual penmanship.
The user u/Big_rain_4718 shared the image in the "handwriting analysis" subreddit, where it quickly racked up 20,000 upvotes.
The post was titled: “Stranger’s unique handwriting. Somebody posted this note in my apartment elevator lobby. I've personally never seen writing like this and can’t help but think this may be the Zodiac killer himself lol.”
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Written in strange, all‑caps, hieroglyphic‑style lettering, the note reads: "If you are smoking or vaping in your unit and/or blowing it out the window please stop! You are affecting those surrounding you. This is a smoke-free building!!”
Stranger’s unique handwriting
by u/Big_Rain_4718 in HandwritingAnalysis
The Zodiac Killer’s handwriting is widely recognized for its taunting, cryptic style, revealed through letters sent to newspapers in the late 1960s and early 1970s that featured unusual shapes and symbols decoded by investigators.
Reddit reacts
The handwriting itself became the real talking point.
“I think it looks pretty cool. That being said he’s probably an architect,” one user wrote.
“Am architect. Can confirm,” replied another.
“Uncle is architect. Also confirm,” added a third.
“Check. I have similar handwriting. We were trained for years to write like this,” another used wrote.
“This was true for me when I started taking design classes in school. It’s still cool to see others with the same experience. Handwriting with architectural/drafting style fonts was really popular to use to create poster boards in school too. It always came out super attractive and it was easy to embellish,” said another.
Other commenters chimed in with their own professional handwriting habits, with one writing: “Is underlining the ‘o’ for the purpose of differentiating it from a zero? I'm in accounting and I always put a slash through my zeroes when I'm actually using zeroes for calculating… The slashed zero is pretty old-school, but then I was trained by old-school accountants ;)”
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Architect Handwriting
Architects are widely known for a distinctive style of handwriting—typically all caps, uniform, geometric, and extremely legible. This style emerged from decades of hand‑drafting, where multiple people collaborated on the same drawings and needed a universal lettering standard.
Architectural lettering guides explain that architects use ALL CAPS because uppercase letters are visually distinct, minimize ambiguity, and remain consistently readable across technical documents.
Architecture publications also highlight that architect handwriting is taught to emphasize precision, consistent proportions, and modular spacing, allowing text to integrate cleanly into drawings. Uppercase lettering reinforces clarity and avoids confusion when plans circulate through many hands.
Newsweek reached out to u/Big_rain_4718 for comment via Reddit. We could not verify the details of the case.
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