After having a stroke at 25, Eilish Briscoe created a typeface to show the process of learning to write again

It’s a common misconception that strokes only occur in older people, that they’re a medical emergency to which young, healthy people are immune. However – while less common – this is far from the case; young people can and do experience strokes, but they can often be hard to identify, as the symptoms and warning signs diverge from those in older generations, and are much less widely understood.

This fact became clear to the artist and designer Eilish Briscoe, when, aged 25, she had a stroke that changed the whole course of her life. On a long and complicated road to recovery, Eilish has now dedicated her personal creative practice and a master’s (completed through Make Your Own Masters) to the experience, creating a typeface that reflects the process of her learning to write again, as well as a series of zines, and immersive exhibitions. This expression is a means for Eilish to come to terms with the life-altering experience, but also a way to fulfil the sense of duty she feels to raise awareness of strokes in young people.

After calling 111 paramedics took Eilish to King’s College Hospital, where she discovered she had suffered a stroke, around 25 hours after her first symptoms presented. On her second day in hospital, Eilish tried to write down how she was feeling – a way of trying to rationalise the shock, fear and helplessness – only to find that “a jumble of incoherent squiggles came out”. Eilish was struggling with dysgraphia, a neurological disorder caused by the stroke. Not all people who have a stroke will experience it, but it happened to be one of Eilish’s symptoms, one she describes as particularly “debilitating and isolating”.

It was then over three to four weeks post-stroke – after Eilish had moved back home up north to recover – that her symptoms deteriorated to the point of her being entirely incapacitated, unable to do anything for herself. “I was trapped in my own body, needing round-the-clock care,” says Eilish. “I was very low. I thought life had been taken away from me.” She lost her speech, her movement, and needed help to do the most basic of tasks. “This was an incredibly hard and scary time. Honestly, I thought I was dying and wanted to die.”

Over the next few months, as so much of Eilish’s attention and energy was focused on trying to get better, creativity – the thing she had put so much of herself into – suddenly felt out of reach. “I realised how much expression was a luxury, and a luxury I didn’t have anymore,” she says. “I thought that creativity no longer had a place in my life.”

However, over time, with the help of rehab therapists, the support of her family and personal persistence and practice, Eilish started to make improvements and her motor skills and speech started to return, albeit slowly. One practice Eilish consistently dedicated herself to, alongside her mum, was writing. Her mum would write a letter, and Eilish would try to copy it, over and over again. It was this process, and the pages of practice it left behind, that later sparked the idea for Eilish’s typeface.

As Eilish’s stroke occurred during the first pandemic lockdown, and due to her feelings of “embarrassment”, she saw very few people during the experience aside from her family and a handful friends. “But then, weirdly, when we came out of the pandemic it was like it never happened,” says Eilish, “and I felt like my experience was so misunderstood.” For Eilish, creating the typeface felt like a tangible way of communicating to friends and family some of what she had been through. On top of this, the process helped Eilish regain her digital skills, a goal she was set on to help her re-enter the workplace.

The typeface is made of letters that Eilish extracted from her handwriting practice, from within a few days of one another, reflecting an early stage in Eilish’s recovery. You may notice that capital letters and punctuation don’t feature in the typeface – because at this stage in her recovery, they were redundant to her. Eilish has called the typeface Maybe, for a number of reasons. During her recovery, with her speech also severely impaired, Eilish found herself returning to the word. “I had lost all autonomy and wasn’t in a position to accept or reject anything: everything was ultimately a decision for my carers,” she says. “The word ‘maybe’ transports me back to this feeling of hopelessness and uncertainty.” Though now, in retrospect, Eilish recognises that “‘maybe’ is a word that is also loaded with possibility, and therefore hope”.

Since completing Maybe, Eilish has created a number of striking and powerful projects that experiment with the vast possibilities of its uses beyond a computer screen. She’s created a stencil that was used at two immersive exhibitions, one featured in Make Your Own Masters: Open Cells, in London and Expression is a Luxury at K-House in Manchester. For both, Eilish covered the walls of the exhibition space with words and terms that referenced her recovery, like ‘they’re never going to know me’, and ‘I am so ashamed’; these were taken directly from her notes, and memories post stroke. Eilish also created zines that featured at the exhibition, each with a different statement on the cover, such as: ‘How are you feeling?’, ‘Shall I come in with you?’, ‘You look so well’. She used various materials, including metal, brown paper, and paper that got thinner and thinner, to explore the various feelings and emotions associated with each.

After spending a couple of years recovering and recuperating in the north, Eilish says she eventually “bucked up the courage” to come back and “rebuild” her life; she now works four days a week as a graphic designer, while using the fifth to focus on her personal work. One thing Eilish is hoping to alleviate is a sense of “shame”, one that she felt after suffering a stroke, and one she’s learnt is very present in other peers who’ve had strokes. As young people (although not all) can often make a very good recovery, “a lot of people just pretend that it didn’t happen”, Eilish says. “I think when you’re trying to get back into the workplace there is a lot of shame around admitting you have had a brain injury.” She wants her practice to remind people who’ve experienced strokes, and everyone around them, that it’s ok to talk, and, importantly, to show the wider world that expression is a luxury not everyone has.

As part of London Design Festival Eilish – alongside nine other creatives – will be exhibiting at the Make Your Own Masters exhibition at Somerset House, running from 20-22 of September.