Even Kevin Drum is getting into the game, reading this NY Times piece about type purists. Following up his comment about how bemused he is that font enthusiasts bother to get bothered about anachronistic signage in films and on TV, may I recommend these pages from one of the folks quoted in the piece, Mark Simonson: Typecasting, and Son of Typecasting. It’s pretty amusing and comprehensive pickiness. (I think I remember reading an interview with one or the other half of the Hoefler/Frere-Jones type team in which the interviewee groused mildly about how it’s almost impossible for him to immerse himself in period films because there is usually some glaring type anachronism at some point. Like that guy in the Far Side cartoon, complaining about the SF film, only this time he’s shouting at the audience ‘they couldn’t possibly have Helvetica yet, because it happened a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away from Switzerland!’ Simonson, on the other hand, is pleased one of his own fonts got used, in passing, in Star Trek. But that’s totally different. It’s in the future.)
I really ought to find that passage from Nietzsche to plug in here but I can remember where it is. Ah well. The wages of a hyper-refined type sense (I am not speaking from experience here) is apparently a kind of inky hemophilia, through which you are capable of bleeding profusely from a minor cut. The world fills up with little letter-y fishhooks that snag your eyes, painfully, but leave the ordinary mass of readers untroubled in their reading passage. Being able to appreciate truly great typography means sacrificing the capacity to find sloppy typography to be perfectly legible. A common enough trade-off, in a sense. Coming to appreciate really good anything means becoming annoyed by merely mediocre samples of the same. But it’s a bit different when the thing is such an everyday functional item. It’s one thing to like really good beer, and come to hate cheap beer. It’s another thing to come to appreciate why a particular sort of hammer is really well-made, and be rendered slightly butterfingered by any $9 hammer from the hardware store ever after. Not a major paradox, I do concede, but kinda funny.
{ 46 comments }
Mandos 11.16.09 at 6:52 am
I always thought Star Wars should have been spoken in Coruscantese and subtitled.
xaaronx 11.16.09 at 7:56 am
Basic, actually. That’s what is supposedly what is rendered as English in the movies. But with subtitles, would we find R2 and Chewie as intriguing?
Back on topic, I guess it’s like being used to [insert favorite OS], but being forced to use Windows at school/work?
bad Jim 11.16.09 at 10:02 am
A glance at a lower-case “a” distinguishes Gill Sans/Hammersmith from most other typefaces. Other differences might delight, enthrall or disgust different eyes; my brother loathes the usual “a” and prefers the Futura or Avant Garde version, which more nearly approximates what we were taught in grade school.
When I retired and had to print my own cards, I was chagrined to note that my favorite typefaces (Optima, for one) had weak versions of “J”. It may generally be the case that every typeface has at least one disappointing letter.
jacob 11.16.09 at 10:36 am
xaaronx: I don’t think it’s really quite like that (not in any insightful sense). Much more like the example they gave, of reading something full of glaring grammar or spelling errors. Or John’s example here with the beer. Or watching cable news talking heads pontificate on some subject you happen to actually know about, and reveal both their utter ignorance and complete certainty in their statements. Or having some knowledge of statistics, and trying to read political science papers. ;-)
Gareth Rees 11.16.09 at 11:23 am
almost impossible for him to immerse himself in period films
Maybe he needs to cultivate his willing suspension of disbelief a bit more? Period films are full of anachronisms and of course you notice the ones related to your own area of expertise. But it’s not reasonable to expect film-makers to remove all possible errors. By employing a typography consultant, they could avoid one kind of error. But there must be hundreds of other sources of error that I’m sure are equally glaring to other kinds of experts: accents and vocabulary are modern, costumes are from the wrong period or inappropriate for the social class or occasion, buildings look weathered when they should look new, landscapes show modern field boundaries and cultivation patterns, livestock are modern breeds, and so on.
The 2009 BBC production of Wuthering Heights had a brief scene at a gritstone outcrop where you could see that the rocks had been eroded by late-20th-century rock climbers. To me, it was a glaring anachronism: in the 1780s it would have been a working quarry, or if abandoned, then heavily vegetated. Should the programme-makers have picked a less dramatic location in order to please the one or two viewers who might notice the problem?
John Holbo 11.16.09 at 11:47 am
I think that might be a nice DIY affectation, bad Jim. ‘You know, of course, I make all my own ‘J’s.’
Tim Wilkinson 11.16.09 at 12:22 pm
Police warning: ‘really good’ and ‘cheap’ are not necessarily, and not even always, exclusive. Maybe in the context of the relevant market in beer they are, though, so I’ll just take your name and address and ‘move you along’.
Zeno 11.16.09 at 1:49 pm
One of my colleagues, who is an experienced birder, says that movies often drive him to distraction because studios use stock audio of bird calls for their sound tracks but seldom bother to match the birds to the locale. He singled out Dances with Wolves as especially egregious in using bird sounds that kept distracting him from the movie. “Hey! No way that bird is there!”
I guess too much knowledge is bad for you. ;-)
Ceri B. 11.16.09 at 2:22 pm
I used to have a lot more sympathy for this kind of thing, the sure and certain knowledge that something just isn’t right and having it break your fun, than I do now. My response these days is a kind of existentialism 101: you are not compelled by the facts of the world to have any particular reaction to them. And it’s stupid to commit yourself to living in a way that guarantees you’ll be hurt all the time.
There are lots of alternatives. You can withdraw. (Heck, you can give up and commit suicide if the burden is too great. “The Myth of Sisyphus” is worth re-reading from time to time.) You can cease caring. You can cultivate an attitude of general hatred and contempt for the mass of humanity. Or you can develop the measure of detachment necessary to know that most people don’t care, aren’t going to, and you can nonetheless go ahead and move among them. The knowledge of others’ errors is a fact to be dealt with, that’s all.
This isn’t at all incompatible with wishing for less of the error you see more clearly, either. Nor with trying to change the world so that the error actually becomes less common. But it may contribute to a perspective that makes it easier to approach others in ways that motivate them to change for reasons better and more lasting than ogodiwishthisidiotwouldshutupandgoaway.
Salient 11.16.09 at 3:22 pm
I eagerly await the presumable third installment, Bride of Typecasting.
LizardBreath 11.16.09 at 3:47 pm
Hey, I spent high school physics doing crossword puzzles with half of Hoefler/Frere-Jones. Lovely guy, although I haven’t seen him since. </pointless namedropping>
John Holbo 11.16.09 at 4:04 pm
I should try to fact-check my remembrance that it was Hoefler or Frere-Jones that was responsible for the lament in question. (It does not reflect badly on either gentleman, I think, so I’m not worried about besmirking their fine reputations hereby, but it’s just me and my vague memory here.)
Ceri B. 11.16.09 at 5:02 pm
Salient: Bridesheader Revisited?
Hey, is there a name for the argument, often though not necessarily fallacious, of the form “Because A is a big problem, and B is a smaller problem, you shouldn’t whine so much about B”? I’m on the brink of committing it a couple times today and like to know the names for what I’m doing.
Keith 11.16.09 at 5:04 pm
Zeno @8:
My wife and I had similar experiences when we saw National Treasure: Book of Secrets. We’re both librarians and the scene where they sneak into the Library of Congress to find the mystery book which has a call number that doesn’t exist made us giggle. The LoC apparently has an entire range of call numbers for secret documents. They never covered that in Library school!
M. Gordon 11.16.09 at 5:56 pm
I heard a reviewer on NPR discussing his disgust with the typeface used for the Kindle. In particular, he said that he read a passage from a beloved book on the Kindle and it wasn’t funny. Then when he re-read it in the paperback, it was funny again! Thereby proving his point. This to me sounded like the typeface equivalent of an audiophile, which is to say, an idiot.
Ginger Yellow 11.16.09 at 6:28 pm
“Police warning: ‘really good’ and ‘cheap’ are not necessarily, and not even always, exclusive. Maybe in the context of the relevant market in beer they are, though, so I’ll just take your name and address and ‘move you along’.”
In the UK, a good ale is usually cheaper than or the same price as a mediocre lager. A good lager is almost always more expensive than a mediocre lager, though. Peroni being a bizarre exception – I was at a bar the other day that charged £4 for a pint of it, while charging only £3.50 for Staropramen.
ejh 11.16.09 at 6:56 pm
Four quid for a pint? Why don’t they just charge thirty and have done with it?
Deliasmith 11.16.09 at 7:14 pm
Bad Jim:
my brother loathes the usual “a†and prefers the Futura or Avant Garde version, which more nearly approximates what we were taught in grade school.
But … Avant Garde is near-illegible. The whole face is unnaturally, inhumanly, symmetrical and comically, childishly circular. It is fatally easy to confuse Avant Garde a, e and o, and any extended passage of text is repulsive.
Its current popularity, I believe, is almost entirely due to the power of the know-nothing dyslexia police.
A non-barbarous typeface that many people with dyslexia find easy to read is Myriad.
Substance McGravitas 11.16.09 at 7:19 pm
I’d be ever so grateful for an example of the fatalities produced thus far. I promise not to snicker.
rea 11.16.09 at 8:21 pm
I have been trying to download that font of wisdom everyone talks about–I figure it will improve my writing–but so far, no luck.
alex 11.16.09 at 8:29 pm
Hey, is there a name for the argument, often though not necessarily fallacious, of the form “Because A is a big problem, and B is a smaller problem, you shouldn’t whine so much about B� I’m on the brink of committing it a couple times today and like to know the names for what I’m doing.
Generally called ‘whatabouttery’ in political blogging circles, as in “If you’re so worried about the iraqis, what about the Palestinians?”
Ceri B. 11.16.09 at 9:41 pm
Thank you, Alex. :)
typephile 11.16.09 at 9:45 pm
Avant Garde is a weak typeface because it was never meant to be one. It was originally the logotype for Ralph Ginzberg’s 1960s magazine of that name. The logo was designed by Herb Lubalin, and is pretty clearly an exaggeration and distortion of Futura. It proved popular enough that demand for an entire alphabet was met by ITC (who were sort of the Letraset of type foundries then).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant_Garde_%28magazine%29
roac 11.16.09 at 10:03 pm
One of my colleagues, who is an experienced birder, says that movies often drive him to distraction because studios use stock audio of bird calls for their sound tracks but seldom bother to match the birds to the locale.
It used to be that if you watched just about any Hollywood movie set in any jungle, you would eventually hear this exotic and evocative “ow ow ow ow ow ow . . . ” on the soundtrack. It was actually the mating call of the very humdrum and North American Pied-billed Grebe. There’s a sound clip here.
Wrye 11.16.09 at 10:15 pm
I’d be ever so grateful for an example of the fatalities produced thus far. I promise not to snicker.
They’re easily found in any community that uses Avant Garde for its road signs, usually strewn about next to a Bus Step, or in the vicinity of a Donger.
Anderson 11.16.09 at 10:54 pm
“‘Stap’?” What the hell does tha–” CRASH!
… which more nearly approximates what we were taught in grade school
I was wondering that re: my 5yo the other day. I’d heard that the research about how what fonts are easier to read goes back to the 1950s or so and probably is methodologically dodgy. What early-childhood research is there that leads to my kid being taught the alphabet in sans-serif?
Substance McGravitas 11.16.09 at 11:08 pm
Here’s a start from boosters of the “Handwriting Without Tears” program.
ckc (not kc) 11.17.09 at 5:15 am
Improvement in the handwriting of students in experimental groups indicate that a
multi-sensory structured handwriting program, particularly Handwriting Without Tears®, may be more effective in improving handwriting legibility than a traditional ball and stick method of instruction.
(so much for the “keep going til it looks like the word at the top” method)
jholbo 11.17.09 at 6:59 am
“I’d heard that the research about how what fonts are easier to read goes back to the 1950s or so and probably is methodologically dodgy.”
I think the problem is that it’s hard to find sufficiently blank slates to test. Everyone finds what they are used to more readable. Familiarity breeds contentment, font-wise. And contentment means legibility. That’s not %100, but it’s not 0%, and it’s hard to factor out. Incidentally, I have read arguments about why Fraktur is easier to read, in German, than Roman (assuming you are used to Fraktur). because German nouns are often extremely long and Fraktur can be more tightly kerned, with more ascenders and descenders, which helps you read despite the cramped kerning; and there are more capitals in German, and capitals in Roman (being part of a different alphabet, properly) just don’t sit well with the lower-case, when there are too many of them. I have no opinion on the subject really. All I know is that, not being used to Fraktur, I can’t read old German books. (My weak German doesn’t help, of course.)
My impression is that there are very few really solid ‘readability’ results that are truly surprising – that is, anything but what people would have probably guessed.
ejh 11.17.09 at 8:21 am
Everyone finds what they are used to more readable.
Maybe, but aren’t we very likely familiar with rather more fonts now than we could have expected to be fifty years ago?
Chris Bertram 11.17.09 at 10:14 am
http://j.mp/4DNxU7
Deliasmith 11.17.09 at 11:48 am
I’d be ever so grateful for an example of the fatalities produced thus far. I promise not to snicker.
‘No, no. I wrote “Cop that cap”.’
phoebesmother 11.17.09 at 4:35 pm
One proven legibility rule: AVOID ALL CAPS.
Why o why o do all naive typesetters think that the most crucial/important paragraph should be set in capital letters, the paragraph that you really MUST read before you click the “I accept” button or sign your mortgage or car loan papers? The one you failed to read/understand completely because it was set in all caps.
As to font plethoria and inelegancies, glanced lately at a typefounder’s catalog from the 1880s? Yes, Ed Benguiat and ITC have a lot to answer for, but they were following in giants’ footsteps. As to sans-serif fonts, I’ve always been partial to the Gothics of Stephenson Blake, good imitations of early wooden specimens.
What hath PostScript wroth? (Sort of like complaining about the Internets.)
Salient 11.17.09 at 10:27 pm
The one you failed to read/understand completely because it was set in all caps.
You answered your own question. :-)
Christian Louboutin Boots 11.18.09 at 2:31 am
The world fills up with little letter-y fishhooks that snag your eyes, painfully, but leave the ordinary mass of readers untroubled in their reading passage. Being able to appreciate truly great typography means sacrificing the capacity to find sloppy typography to be perfectly legible. A common enough trade-off, in a sense.
PHB 11.18.09 at 4:42 am
The practice of saying ‘forget about B, A is a bigger problem’ is a form of agenda denial.
It is a tactic that is used when there is nothing to be gained from a discussion of B and that discussion itself will have a price.
It is very often used by supporters of Israel of course, look! Iran! look! evil Sudan! But it has a much broader application. Apologists for the Bush regime are quick to point out that Iran and North Korea are worse. I must have forgotten the bit in the bill of rights where it says that the forgoing ten amendments can be waived provided the US can avoid the bottom two places on the global human rights abuse list.
Another related agenda denial tactic is to claim that now is not the right time to think about the issue. Of course it never ever will be. We could not discuss the corruption of the Bushies while they were in office and now that they are out of office it is too late. So Bush never did give a public explanation for his involvement in the Plame affair.
When it is not done for purposes of deliberate agenda denial, raising a different problem may or may not be off topic. Trying to deal with Internet security issues we have no shortage of people trying to tell us what the problem ‘really is’ and when you try to convene a meeting to address topic A you may or may not want the discussion of topic B raised.
Case in point is type setting. If someone is talking about the choice of font you may or may not want someone to raise the problem of agenda denial.
bad Jim 11.18.09 at 7:16 am
Since we’re talking about a choice of font, or in some cases a preference for particular letter forms, I ought to mention that I’ve never been fond of the lower-case “g”, which like “a” departs conspicuously from the common handwritten minuscule form. When I first encountered computer typography, I realized that Courier used my preferred form. It felt like conceding that Nixon advanced some progressive initiatives.
A long while later I was impressed by the unusual typeface used in someone’s resume, until I realized that it was just the output of an old monospaced dot matrix printer, which I may have been slow to notice because, as a programmer, I was still using a text editor with a monospaced screen font, which, come to think of it, I had designed myself. (See “Fun with VGA cards.”)
bad Jim 11.18.09 at 8:18 am
Who doesn’t need a test phrase that uses each letter once?
Cwm fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz.
alex 11.18.09 at 10:35 am
But can something be simultaneously a cwm and a fjord? Saith the vext quiz…
derek 11.18.09 at 11:30 am
Why o why do all naive typesetters think that the most crucial/important paragraph should be set in capital letters
Sometimes they’re being only fake naive. When the tobacco companies were forced to include clear cancer warnings on their cigarette packets, they made them all caps, bold, as big a font size as could possibly be squeezed onto the side of the packet with no wasted white space, and with a bold border close around the text. You can’t get clearer than that, right?
roac 11.18.09 at 3:18 pm
37, 38: Seems well within the capacity of plate tectonics to open up a cwm to the sea and convert it to a fjord. But “vext” is arguably cheating. According to OED, “vex’t,” as an obsolete variant spelling of “vexed,” needs an apostrophe. (The only example given where the apostrophe is missing is “still-vext Bermoothes,” from the Tempest.)
roac 11.18.09 at 3:28 pm
On rereading 38 I see that I have evaded alex’s question: Does a cwm stop being a cwm if it becomes a fjord? Gee, I dunno. Possibly a bilateral commission of Welsh and Norwegian geologists should be set up to adjudicate the issue.
alex 11.18.09 at 3:44 pm
Ah, I thought “vext” wasn’t a word at first sight, but it’s in Webster’s online, so I refrained from protest.
Meanwhile, on the question of whether a cwm is uncwmed by being befjorded, we shall have to await the Cardiff/Oslo Geomorphological Nomenclature Colloquium of 2012… Assuming Cardiff and/or Oslo still exist in 2012…
derek 11.19.09 at 10:42 am
I disagree with the OED. We don’t require that spelt, learnt, and meant be spelt spel’t, learn’t and mean’t. Only where there is a letter “d”, and the medium is poetry, and the obsolete custom is followed of assigning an extra syllable to the “e” in spelled, learned, and meaned, do we need an apostrophe to indicate that no such syllable is intended.
In any case, apostrophes are allowed in the game of contriving holographic sentences, so I still don’t see how it’s cheating.
John Holbo 11.19.09 at 10:56 am
“Sometimes they’re being only fake naive.”
It keeps me up all night, worrying about stuff like this.
roac 11.19.09 at 2:56 pm
44: I concede that since the rules (codified where, BTW?) apparently allow hyphens, there is no obvious reason not to allow apostrophes as well.
Comments on this entry are closed.