My Love of Typography

I took 2 years of type as an undergraduate, and loved it.  I was lucky to have studied under Phil Meggs, Rob Carter, and Ben Day. These three professors/writers were frustrated that there was no acceptable textbook to teach typography, so they wrote their own, Typographic Design: Form and Communication (1985, Van Nostrand, Reinholt), now in its fourth edition.

Because I started out as a graphic designer, I collect items associated with typography like hot lead, lead, and wooden type blocks and I have an old type drawer circa 1940. In my home office I have a beautiful reproduction of Caslon hand-printed in Williamsburg (properly framed for protection and to give it the visual status it deserves).

The Bodoni typeface was originally designed by Giambattista Bodoni in 1798, and was revived as ATF Bodoni drawn in 1907 by Morris Fuller Benton, and released by American Type Founders.  Mr. Benton's son gave me one of his father's books, Book of American Types, Standard Faces, by the American Type Founders (1934) that I still treasure.

It was a thrill to have had lunch with Matthew Carter, co-founder of Bitstream, the first independent digital font foundry at an American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) luncheon in the early 90's. 

Okay, enough about typography for now.

Objectified, the movie

In class on Thursday, we watched the movie, Objectified, directed by Gary Hustwit (Helvetica). Insights to the design process are always inspiring.  I enjoyed it almost as much as I had Helvetica.  Helvetica was more exciting for me because I have a great love for Type, with a capital T (see my next post, or not if you aren't a typography junkie).

The movie, Objectifed, was wonderful because every object does have a story. As one of my classmates, Sarah, said about the attributes of good design, is that "it isn't noticed until there is a problem."  Designers are always fixing those problems in creative ways.  They constantly ask "Why is it like this, and not like that?"

As I was watching the movie, it reminded me of Daniel H. Pink's presentation I saw a couple of years ago, and his book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future.  While his presentation was simplistic, the idea that the world needs creative people/designers is obvious.

While the movie alluded to the thought that if there is no market for a well-designed item, it can be re-created to have artistic or emotional value. Pink's presentation was a more direct with his flyswatter example (to which I added one more).  He asked, if we can get a good working flyswatter for under a dollar, why would we pay $21.95 for an Alessi APS07 Dr. Skud Fly-Swatter by Philippe?

His point was that we live in an age of abundance and the market must supply our need/obsession to consume.