I am very exciting to be here

[sandwichcontrol]

I've tried to avoid posting anything about type here because (a) normal people don't care, (b) typophiles care and make fun of me, and (c) I recently had to eat the words "I think Clarendon is back to stay." Clearly I underestimated the power of Starbucks to turn anything into a symbol of blandly corporate domination, Ray Charles notwithstanding

Comments

[maidofspades]

I maintain Geneva's superiority, in bold. But in retrospect, I agree about the probably sexual orientation of Comic Sans.

[sandwichcontrol]

Geneva itself has a certain charm, but it's primarily the charm of association with the early Apple computers. Anytime I see Geneva, or more to the point, Chicago, I think of happy days in my junior high computer lab, surfing the World Wide Web over what I can only assume was a 56K dial-up connection of some sort. Were it not for this association, I think you would see that Geneva itself lacks any real character; it is innocuous and fairly drab.

However, much more important: There is no Geneva bold. Surely you haven't been -- shudder -- faux-bolding fonts?(!)

[maidofspades]

superiority, in bold

Next, you'll be accusing me of misplaced modifiers.

Actually, after looking through the links, I am willing to semi-cede you Helvetica, although my affection for my Apple IIsi will likely never wane.

(The Cooper Black short film reminded me -- in a good way -- of junior high film projects.)

Your former editor moans and pounds the table.

[anonymous]

All this after the tsuris you gave me for choosing Helvetica for the publications? Oy gevalt!

Keep pounding...

[sandwichcontrol]

I should clarify. I still have no love for Helvetica as a body text, and still insist that it looked downright silly next to all that decadent Sabon. To be historically accurate, it has just occurred to me, we could have used Gill Sans with the Sabon-one font designed by Tschichold and the other at least grudgingly sanctioned by him during his years as artistic director for Penguin. In fact, I think he must have used them together himself, and I'm certainly not going to argue with Jan Tschichold. Helvetica, I feel, shines in the heavier weights, and when compressed, and in all caps, and in just about every context except long paragraphs of body text.

And we're out of binder clips.

One more, and that's it.

[maidofspades]

I just got home from seeing I Heart Huckabees -- which is great and really funny in its own right, but which uses Arial (NOT Helvetica) for the opening credit sequence. Well and good, I suppose, if you are going for an iconic statement in font, but then the closing credits were in Verdana! (At least, I think it was Verdana. It was most assuredly NOT Arial OR Helvetica. I was dragged out of the theatre before I could study the credits in any detail.) Harumph. It's a good thing films don't need colophons.

[dehumidifier]

Helvetica was so last year. This year is all about if I can recognize the font, then YOU ARE USING THE WRONG FONT.