Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Typography fans in the NY Times!

Just came across an article on typography purists, written by Alice Rawsthorn in the Design section of the New York Times. A highlight:
“I think sometimes that being overly type-sensitive is like an allergy,” said Michael Bierut, a partner in the Pentagram design group in New York. “My font nerdiness makes me have bad reactions to things that spoil otherwise pleasant moments.”
Reminds me of the whole Ikea catalog controversy back in August. The article goes on to discuss historically inaccurate use of fonts. For example:
Take “Titanic,” in which the numbers on the dials of the ship’s pressure gauges use Helvetica, a font designed in 1957, some 45 years after the real “Titanic” sank. Helvetica was also miscast in “Good Night and Good Luck,” which takes place in the early 1950s.
Wow. Getting upset with that is beyond even me!

2 comments:

Tiffany said...

Would we ever reach the point of being a font snob?

Amy said...

I would love to be well-versed in the historical aspects of fonts - I think that's when the snobbery will start to come to play though.

I have to say - I do have a bit more sympathy for Cooper Black after I saw that "Behind the Font" vid. :-D