posted by RICK : 11:08 AM
I feel like November is font-month. Or something. Honestly, as I'm planning out this post in my mind I really don't have the slew of examples I thought I had, but whatever, that's not the point. The point is that fonts are everywhere, and yet how many of us even know what the hell things like a "Serif" are?
The best moments in the film "Shop Girl" involved the character played by Jason Schwartzman. His job was that he stenciled amps, which in a way, is the perfect job to describe a certain type of big-thinking-slacker. He also spoke obsessively about fonts, and creating fonts. Hmm. Creating fonts. Doesn't that seem insurmountably difficult? I mean, I can barely write in cursive. Sure, my normal handwriting has developed itself into a bit of an original font over the past 5 or 6 years, and yes, my letters are uniform to my style and rarely alter, but that's not really creating a font. I could never "italicize" my writing or make it "condensed-bold."
This is my point.
Then today, I'm reading in the current issue of Esquire ("Best and Brightest 2005" Dec. 2005; Vol 144 No. 6), and they have an article about the "leading" font-makers in America.
These guys. Their big claim to fame was inventing the
Gotham typeface. The article made them sound, as it should, pretty brilliant, and incredibly meticulous.
But this leads us to the an overall thesis: no one gives a flying fuch* about fonts, and that's not right. We live in a world that has become hyper-designed. Just about everything we come in contact with has been layed out and arranged (hopefully) for maximum effect and usability (I'm NOT looking in
your direction
Pitchfork!) and fonts are the basis of it all. That being said, I know little about the medium and this troubles me.
If I'd have gone to design school I'm sure I'd be sick to death of fonts, but I didn't-- and I'm not. Really, its a shame that the medium has evolved into something that seems to be on a strictly NEED to know basis. In college I received a majority of my worst grades (and most sleepless nights) trying to recognize the difference between Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns (the latter being the only one I could ever remember-- because it has the leafing at the top) in art/architectural history classes. And do you know what? Most of those columns crumbled to the ground a THOUSAND years ago. And yet, humans still seem to be writing things, but my professors never taught me anything about fonts. Where's the font-appreciation course for someone who isn't planning on being a designer, but would like to know some of the origins to, say, 90% of ALL THINGS one looks at?
There is a problem with the system when you go through 17 years of eduction, learing all about the past, and yet walking away being completely oblivious to what is actually happening around us. Of course, I'm speaking mostly about how we educate people about art, but I think it applies to general history as well. There was only one class I ever took that I felt did a solid job of matching the history we were learning about to the present we were living, and interestingly enough it was also the first time in my life I ever gave a second though to fonts. That class: AP American History my junior year in high school. The font: Gil Sans. The near ream of handouts we got in that class were typed up using the great Gil Sans. It stuck out, amongst other reasons, because at the time Gil Sans wasn't available with the standard font-packages that came with a home computer-- at least not on a PowerMac LCII. The closest we had was "Gil Sans Condensed Bold," but try turning in a paper in BOLD-- on par with turning in a paper in "Chicago" or "Dingbats."
Gil Sans was my favorite font because of this-- because it was hard to find. It was art. Something to be respected not because of its utility, but because of its aesthetic and its scarcity.
Eventually I got ahold of "Gil Sans" and started using it all the time, and sadly, it's lost some of its magic. Right now I don't know if I have a favorite font. The aforementioned "Gotham" is pretty great, as it "Interstate." Actually, I'm becoming kind of an "Arial" fan as of late. Shittiest? Well that's obviously the one that is rocking this blog: Courier. Sure, it has its purposes. If you want a font that looks like it could come from a typewriter, then Courier is your goto guy, but it definitely isn't the most elegant.
I ask you: what is your favorite font?
*self-sensored because I'm at work and the stupid web-filtered seemed to be getting increasingly sensitive. Look, if you'd like a transcript of this blog entry with curse words put back in (and maybe even a few thrown in in places that don't really make sense for good measure), send me a self-addressed, stamped envelope and I'll forward you the original draft. (Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery)