Sunday, April 3, 2011

Journal Entry 4/4



TYPE MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY
BY JESSICA HELFAND

While participating in a student portfolio review, Jessica Helfand found something had gone wrong how things were being taught. She notice book upon book was being set in Futura.


Paul Renner released Futura in 1928 and he was inspired by geometric and streamlined shapes. "Futura was important for a number of reasons: arguably the first sans-serif font to be widely distributed, it has since its inception influenced countless other typefaces and remains, to some, the epitome of modern design."

Futura today remains a typeface of its era: smooth and sleek, round and uncompromising.

I learned from this article that I really need to pay attention to WHY I choose typefaces. I shouldn't pick a typeface just because I like it. I need to take into consideration how it reads, the organization of it, size, etc.

Helfand says, "True, we live in a multi-cultural, aesthetically pluralistic world now —one where the form-to-content relationships aren't so easily identified, let alone made visually manifest." This is so true because most people now just choose something that looks good, and hardly consider it's application and meaning.

I think that DIN would be a good alternative because it is a sans serif font that seems to be based on geometric shapes.

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13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT A TYPEFACE
BY MICHAEL BIERUT

For years of his career, Bierut worked for Massimo Vignelli, a designer who is legendary for using a very limited number of typefaces. Most of Bieruts projects were set in five fonts: Helvetica, Futura, Garamond No. 3, Century Expanded, and Bodoni. It truly was a time-saver.

Massimo said, "Out of thousands of typefaces, all we need are a few basic ones, and trash the rest." Michael didn't understand why someone would need to waste hours choosing a font, and his Catholic school upbringing must have well prepared me for this kind of moral clarity. I accepted it gratefully.

After he left his job with Massimo, he went crazy with his fonts. He used 36 fonts on 16 pages.

"She [his wife] remembered classmates who had switched to public school after eight years under the nuns: freed at last from demure plaid uniforms, they wore the shortest skirts they could find. "Jesus," she said, looking at one of my multiple font demolition derbies. "You've become a real slut, haven't you?"

Bierut gives us 13 reasons to choose a typeface:

1. Because it works.



2. Because you like its history.



3. Because you like its name.


4. Because of who designed it.


5. Because it was there.


6. Because they made you.


7. Because it reminds you of something.


8. Because it is beautiful.


9. Because it's ugly.

10. Because it's boring.

11. Because it's special.


12. Because you believe in it.

13. Because you can't not.

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