Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Great Typography Article

My sister just posted this article from the NY Times and it pretty much sums up my relationship with typography. I feel that having a basic knowledge of typefaces is both a blessing and a curse: it's great when you find awesome typefaces in design that are inspiring and perfect, but on the other hand it makes you upset/angry/disappointed in the entire human population when you stumble upon horrific fonts with bad leading, or acceptable fonts used in completely the wrong situation. While the issues of bad typography have been bothering me for years--ever since my first design classes in college, one memory stands out in particular. I was in the emergency room, hooked up to an IV and barely aware of my surroundings, and the one thing I remember is how annoyed I was at a horribly designed poster in Comic Sans, one of my least favorite fonts of all time. After this experience, I can totally relate to the author of this article when he states "If it’s bad for me (an amateur enthusiast who is interested in typography, but isn’t hugely knowledgeable about it), what must it be like for the purists? Dreadful, it seems." I can't even imagine...