Typography is still for nerds

BY JOSH KELLER, MAR 09, 2008

For a moment there, I thought typography might actually become really popular. I had just dragged several of my friends to a movie theater in San Francisco to see Gary Hustwit’s Helvetica. They had initially been skeptical of the entertainment value of a film about a single typeface, even after I told them that it was “the most popular typography documentary of all time.” But after seeing the film, they seemed transformed. One friend, Erik, whose e-mail signature was long set in the ignoble Comic Sans, claimed after seeing the film that he would “begin looking at letters in a new way.” And then there was the Double Jeopardy round of November 7, 2007, which included a category called “Knowledge of Fonts.”

My mind raced. Perhaps we were entering a new era of typographic understanding, one in which the typography of cell phone contracts, dry cleaning storefronts, and office PowerPoint presentations would matter. Perhaps the forms of the lowercase g would become a suitable subject for casual dinner conversation. Perhaps the makers of computer monitors, taking pity on graphic designers, would redesign their products to display at magnificently high resolutions.

A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Erik. His signature was still in Comic Sans.

With the widespread use of computers, more people know basic things about typefaces – that they exist, for instance – than at any point in recent history. But the knowledge of the many newcomers to the field (and that includes myself) is often shallow, more a product of curiosity than of serious study. The actual design and study of type remains, and will remain, a specialized pursuit for a select group of nerds.

This actually makes me happy. One of the things that has always appealed to me about type is how it seems to exercise its power in secret. Type controls our emotional response to a passage of text with small, subtle shifts in form and proportion. It often triggers visual allusions we don’t really think about. Behind all of the this is the type designer, a strange man or woman who rarely receives credit. Most every reader spends most of the time thinking about the ideas of a text, not the person who designed its letters.

Which is as it should be.

Posted under typography.