This year’s issue was really no surprise. It featured many typefaces that look evocative of complex emotional and aesthetic themes. It highlighted a few intriguing designs. It showcased myriad type families that looked to be well-researched and carefully executed. But it didn’t feature any fonts that looked to be designed for the screen, complete with hand hinting.

Granted, there may have been a great many faces that were released this year that featured this technical compensation for older browsers and operating systems that somehow escaped my ever watchful eye on the type community. They might simply not have made it to the top of the best sellers list.

But every day, I continue to see faces released that simply cannot hold up to the harsh rendering conditions of certain browsers. And further, I believe that this is still an issue that needs addressing in both the type design community and the web design community. In exasperation, I tweeted about my bewilderment.

One thoughtful response to my tweet suggested that, because the world is heading for retina displays, the need for hand-hinted fonts is declining, so it’s not likely worth the cost and the trouble to hand tune fonts for optimal web performance. (As a side note, you can get a refresher course on the ins and outs of hand hinting in an article I wrote on the subject.)

My response? While it may be true that the world is heading toward retina and other high pixel density displays, we are still a long way from popular adoption of this cutting edge technology. Notably, while 2013 looks to be the year that Apple’s entire MacBook Pro line will see retina displays, the jury is still out on whether this will extend to the MacBook Air line, and most experts agree that we will ring in the new year once again before Apple releases a retina display iMac. On the other side of the market share, though it is likely that PC consumers will be treated to HiDPI laptops this year, their widespread adoption is anything but imminent. Even at a more reasonable price point than Apple’s still opulent $1,699 for the bottom-of-the-line non-mobile retina device, these state of the art screens will still only find their way into the hands of early adopters with sizable cash reserves for the coming twelve months.

Thus, it may be another two years yet before even half of users are staring at ultra high resolution displays. That’s a significant amount of time in our industry. Think about how much web typography has changed over the past two to three years. Webfont services like Typekit, now widespread, are still awaiting their third birthday. Responsive design is still in its relative infancy. The widely adopted specifications of CSS3 and HTML5 still have not yet reached completion. And yet these technological advancements are old news to us.

And yet at this breakneck pace and with all this change, one thing remains constant: web design is 95% typography. We simply cannot afford to continue to use webfonts for text settings that don’t render well across browsers. Like it or not, Internet Explorer 7 and 8 are still relatively widely used, making up about a quarter of users overall, jumping up to half or more of all users one some large-scale web applications like the one I work on at my job. I imagine widely read news sites or e-commerce sites like Amazon might be experiencing similar situations. (To boot, Amazon’s pseudo-responsive site still supports 1024px wide resolutions. What browsers do you imagine those customers might be using?)

Type designers, I implore you to consider the implications of your designs on low-resolution screens and older browsers. Web designers, I encourage you to consider the extreme privilege of typing away on a $2,000+ retina display machine while another one displays a text message in your pocket, and consider that, while it is 2013, not everyone boasts your arsenal of devices. We can still look forward to a future in which hand hinted fonts and ancient browsers will be obsolete. We can dream of a world in which our children will ask what it was like to debug CSS for IE8, where all browsers will autoupdate, and no two adjacent pixels will be distinguishable from one another. But as of the time of this writing, that day simply is not yet here.

I’ll include a brief blurb on each aspect of the update and some thoughts around my motivations.

Mobile Support

There were a number of things I was unhappy about with this blog, but none was more overwhelming than the lack of support for mobile. I have been building sites with responsive layouts for about a year and a half now, and this site’s redesign was a long time in the making for just that reason.

New, Stripped-Down Theme

Because I was working full time, I wasn’t quite up to the task of developing an entire custom theme from scratch, so I wanted a good starting point. I loved the idea of taking a blank theme and adding the styles from scratch, but I needed a bit of a baseline to work from. On the other end of the spectrum, there were themes that locked you into a design; I could set the type and the colors, but any other changes would require a complete overhaul. In short, I couldn’t find the right balance between freedom to write styles and a substantial framework that I could feel like I was building on top of, rather than working with an entirely clean slate.

No Comments, Social Media Buttons, or Other Cruft

I have had a blog on the Svbtle Network for a good while now, and though I don’t update very regularly, I did fall in love with the admin interface and the design, both of which were as minimal as could be. I appreciated the fact that the emphasis was on the writing, and there were no buttons pleading with the user to tweet the link or like the blog on Facebook. This was motivated by the fact that I hate the visual clutter of these buttons, but also that I’ve never (truly, never) used a “Tweet this!” button to tweet a link to a post I enjoyed. With links, it’s always been cut-and-paste for me, and I suspect I’m not alone there.

With regard to comments, I took them out entirely, and you can see why here. Basically, I just got sick of filtering out the spam. However, I’d still love to hear from you if you have some input on anything I say here. I’d welcome your comments via email.

Sentinel

See this beautiful typeface you’re reading in right now? Isn’t it exquisite? Easy on the eyes? Especially so if you are reading this on a device with a retina screen. I have been an admirer of Sentinel by Hoefler & Frère Jones for quite some time. It is a magnificent reimagining of the classic Clarendon style. And just look at these italics.

Ultimately, I designed the entire site around this typeface. While many are championing the mobile first movement, this redesign was decidedly type first.

While working with Sentinel, I pored over its display on every screen I could get my hands on, working and reworking the size, measure, and leading. But as much as I would like to take all the credit for the results, Sentinel did much of the work itself. It was an absolute joy to work with, and throughout the process, I was amazed at how easy it was to set type with. Sentinel just makes words look good. Period.

Onward

Like any designer, I had gotten sick of looking at my work after a number of months. I wanted a design that would encourage me to update more frequently, something readers would enjoy reading more on any device. So feel free to kick the wheels a bit, and I hope you’ll come back more frequently, now that the reading experience has been improved.

The reasons for which Comic Sans was, by all accounts, a terrible choice for this presentation are beyond the scope of this article. However, I wrote not so long ago that typographic critique should be accompanied by a counterproposal. Anyone can say that using Comic Sans to announce such an ostensibly groundbreaking discovery was a poor choice, but, though tweets abound about this affront to aesthetics, I’ve yet to see anyone suggest an alternate typeface.

Why Offer Alternates?

Do suggestions need to be made? Patrick Kingsley of the UK newspaper The Guardian asserts otherwise, noting that CERN was right to use such a readable typeface to announce a discovery of this magnitude. I beg to differ, however, on the grounds that it would be difficult to argue that Comic Sans is objectively more readable than many other well-designed sans serifs, particularly if you take into account the visceral disgust with which most people immediately react to the comic face.

Further, though Kingsley notes that it was important for the research behind the boson to be “communicate[d]…in as friendly and accessible a way as possible,” I’m unconvinced. The presentation was given to a room full colleagues of the CERN scientists. The language of the presentation was not given to kindergartners. Those in attendance were men and women who immediately understood the significance of the oblique statement that the researchers at the CERN had “observed a new boson with a mass of 125.3 ± 0.6 GeV at 4.9 sigma significance” and immediately, upon instantaneously grasping the implications of this declaration, erupted into thunderous applause. Given the scientific wherewithal it must take to comprehend that statement, I think it’s safe to assume that the attendees’ comprehension wasn’t aided by the use of a typeface beloved by kindergarten teachers.

Okay, so what font would you have used?

Let me begin with the admission that my understanding of the scientific importance of this discovery is tenuous at best. So these suggestions are based on my understanding not of the science behind the boson, but the apparent cultural and geopolitical repercussions of the event. Thus, what follows are five suggestions of typefaces that would’ve been wholly appropriate for the presentation, given the social and aesthetic context.

Neue Haas Grotesk

Christian Schwartz’s recent redrawing of Helvetica’s predecessor, Neue Haas Grotesk, would’ve been an excellent choice to announce the Higgs boson. Based as it is on the quintessential Swiss face, NHG would allude to CERN’s geographic placement in Geneva, and its several improvements on the readability of Helvetica make it every bit as readable as Comic Sans is purported to be, if not more so.

BP Suisse

Speaking of Swiss typography, why not honor the newness of the discovery with a release from a fresh foundry like Swiss Typefaces? This Lausanne-based foundry’s excellent grotesk Suisse BP — which was designed a mere 40 miles from the CERN labs — evokes the Swiss greats, but adds a fresh take. This could be seen as echoing the researchers at the CERN building on the work of seminal theoretical physicist Peter Higgs to lead to their eventual discovery.

FF Meta

The time I spent in Europe a number of years ago is sprinkled with memories of recognizing FF Meta, Erik Spiekermann’s iconic typeface, nearly everywhere I went. I think of it as the aesthetic mascot of Europe, given is ubiquity there. It also has a rational and restrained personality, perfect for typesetting a scientific discovery. It would undoubtedly have supported the presenters’ assumed goals of readability without a distracting sense of character.

Prenton

Why not remind the audience of the founder and namesake of the heretofore undiscovered particle? Prenton is an excellent sans serif, and, as I noted in the Typekit blog, a substantial improvement on Gill Sans, typically the go-to British face. Prenton would do well as a readable face that would pay tribute to Higgs’ motherland. As an added bonus, its moderate contrast gives it a humanistic quality that would remind viewers of the significance of the discovery of the particle for humankind.

Univers

Arguably every bit as Swiss as Helvetica, Adrian Frutiger’s Univers remains a typographic classic, an inarguably timeless masterpiece. Readable, rational, balanced, its everything a typeface should be. And with a name like Univers, how much more suited could it be to describing the mysteries of the vast universe in which we live and with which scientists are so fascinated?

A Modest Proposal

So there you have it. I modestly propose these typefaces because, again, even after reading a number of articles on the subject, I still have an embarrassingly poor understanding of the boson, and could not adequately design a presentation for the CERN without first grasping the theory behind their presentation.

However, I can say that Comic Sans is wholly unsuited for the context, and these five typefaces would have helped herald the news of this landmark discovery with the flair, confidence, and seriousness it deserves.

I think not. This year’s Interlink Conference built upon last year’s success to great effect. The speaker list was again phenomenal, the hospitality yet another step up, and the venue was more central, comfortable, and conducive to inspiration.

Notably, it was clear that Shawn went to great lengths to make sure that the strong female contingent of our profession was well represented. Last year, Whitney Hess, Denise Jacobs, and Sarah Parmenter gave outstanding talks on their respective niches. Similarly, last week, front-end extraordinare Jina Boulton, lettering queen Jessica Hische, and content strategy powerhouse Erin Kissane all shared their wealths of knowledge with our eager ears. (Not to mention UX Magazine’s Lynne Polischuik and writer/content strategist Stephanie Hay, who, rumor has it, conducted excellent workshops earlier in the week.)

The theme of this years conference was craft, and each speaker spoke to how their extreme passion for detail manifested in their choice of tools, workflow, and creative process. This choice of theme felt timely, given the wealth of blog posts and artifacts that have been produced this year with the same concept in mind.

I took furious notes on most of the speakers. What follows is a half-baked attempt to categorize those thoughts into a form that will make sense to anyone but me.

Faruk Ates: Adaptive Humans

Faruk began with the proposition that being adaptive humans is about seeing ourselves as craftspeople. He gave the example of a particular Dutch footballer who, rather than play particular positions on the pitch (are we designers, front-end developers, programmers?), responded to different game situations in a way appropriate to each, rather than being bound by traditional expectations of, say, where on the field a midfielder might engage play.

Analogously, we as web craftspeople must be able to adapt to different projects, drawing from a wide range of skills. our teams can sometimes lack a collaborative organization (i.e., having a “marketing team,” a “development team,” etc. does not necessarily lend itself well to cross-team partnerships). To what extent are we willing to adjust our workflows? Let’s take a look at how we work with each other and within our organizations.

Erin Kissane: Embiggening the Magic of Craft

There has been a definitional problem as the idea of content strategy comes to the fore. Content strategy is system design. We’re not making things per se, we’re making systems that make things.

As we approach our craft, we should be seeking not knowledge, but mastery. Not just good quality, but excellence and a human scale.

How are we thinking about our subsystems? We need to be able to zoom in and out, to gain perspective, to look at both the large and the small scale.

Systems need craft. Humans need craft.

Five proposals for craft: return to the artifact, empower makers (think CMSs), work in craftsperson time (i.e., “humane efficiency”), ship small but excellent, and seek deep wells of knowledge.

Our ideal should be handmade systems. We want a world not of the factory, but of the workshop.

Jon Tan: Revert to Type

According to Jon Tan, we should be designing with web type for impact (grabbing attention) and immersion (absorbing involvement). According to recent studies, differences between good or poor typography appear to have little effect on reading speed and comprehension. There is apparently no empirical difference in how long it takes to read a document when it is set well compareed with a poorly set document.

However, good typography induces a good mood. Though it took almost no difference in time to read a poorly or well set piece of text, the reader will underestimate the time it took to read a well set piece of text, and overestimate the time it took to read one poorly set. In other words, reading well set text is more enjoyable.

Here are some considerations for choosing type to set on the web:

• Check for hinting and optimization for web
• Carefully read EULA’s to make sure type is licensed for web use
• Set the smallest intended text first to make sure it is readable in the given face
• Confirm that the face supports the languages you need
• Confirm that the face supports the OpenType features you need

When checking for usefulness of typefaces, consider setting a piece of text that tests for letter differentiation:

agh! iIl1 O0

The agh! will give you an idea of the character of the face (single or double storey a and g?), the x height, and the ascender and descenders. The iIl1 and O0 will give you a sense of how distinct the glyphs are, and therefore allows you to assess the chances of words being misread because of letter confusion.

Cameron Moll: The Burden of Creativity

What might it look like to acknoweldge the inevitable frustration that comes from being creative, but to come to appreciate and expect that frustration as a part of the creative process?

Creativity should not necessarily be thought of as bringing something into existence that has not existed before. What if we thought of it as organizing existing matter (can be thought of as anything from forking and building on GitHub repositories to simply using the Creative Suite to create something).

T.S. Eliot, after finishing The Wasteland, had his colleague Ezra Pound make edits and corrections. Eliot then published The Wasteland with the inscription Il miglior fabbro, which translates to “The Better Craftsman,” suggesting that the more profound producer of himself and his colleague was Pound, ahving used Eliot’s materials to create something yet better. Who is our better craftsman? For whom are we the better craftsman?

Conclusion

I can’t imagine how much work it is to organize a conference. Shawn Johnston somehow manages to pull off the entire event single-handedly, and has consistently taken great care to ensure an experience that is not only enjoyable, but edifying. He clearly takes great pride in paying attention to the work of the seminal figures in our field, and putting together a program that is as timely as it is informative.

Consider adding Interlink to your conference schedule next year. At the price, it’s a surprisingly affordable investment in the re-envigoration of your web career.

Like many exciting and inpsiring projects in the design community these days, Linotype: In Search of the Eighth Wonder of the World began as a Kickstarter project. Director Doug Wilson was successfully funded and went on to make the 78-minute documentary about the Linotype typesetting machine.

Wilson’s debut film does a wonderful job in its opening minutes of creating the historical and aesthetic backdrop for the machine. Through compelling charts and infographics, you get a definite sense of how many attempts were made at a machine that could speed up hand compositing, thus multiplying the fortunes of newspaper and book publishers.

The viewer likewise gets a sense of the extreme complexity of the machine. Measuring an overwhelming 7 feet tall and weighing in at several hundred pounds, the Linotype is a behemoth, and the viewer is awestruck as the operators describe the remarkably complex system of levers, wheels, and molten lead. Here, the first human element of the movie comes to light: the co-mingled fear and respect the linotype operators have for the machine.

Judging by the bearded and bespectacled men and sensible skirt-wearing women in attendance at a recent Seattle screening, many were approaching the film as a modern designers or typography lovers. For this demographic, one of the more thought provoking elements of the film is the way it illustrates that linotype operators were not just the midcentury equivalent of our current hipsters. These people were working class artisans, not the bohemian elite. And yet the care they invested in their craft was remarkable. As one historian put it, “These were talented, artistic people posing as industrial workers in coveralls.” These men (and a few women) were the proletariat virtuosos of a bygone era.

Unlike many dramas you’d watch unfold at a movie theater, you know how this one ends: with the demise of a machine that, like all machines, meets its end and is made obsolete by its successor, in this case, photo-typesetting. And yet where the film shines is the sense of nostalgia it evokes in you as you watch the archival footage of the machines being dismantled in the very context in which they were once considered irreplacable. As a lover of type, as a human being, it tugs on your hearstrings.

Linotype operators were the proletariat virtuosos of a bygone era.

Overall, type designers, typographers, and graphic designers alike would be well served to learn what they can about these machines before the thousand or so that remain are sold for scrap. And as we complain about type rendering on the web or Photoshop crashes, it behooves us to recall and learn from the constraints that type designers, compositors, and layout artists dealt with in a time before our own.

Linotype: In Search of the Eighth Wonder of the World debuted on February 3rd. Check the screenings page for an event near you.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you have an understanding of an appreciation for just how much I’ve come to rely on Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style. I reference it frequently in my writing, and at least as frequently in designing and laying out pages, whether for print or for web. Admittedly, however, I often pick up the book to remind myself about a rule and often get more than I bargained for. I get lost in its pages and end up doing more reading than referencing.

Enter Matthew Butterick’s Typography for Lawyers. Butterick’s blog is the book’s namesake, but rest assured, this book is for far more than litigators. A quick, thorough guide, this text offers much to typographic novices and experts alike.

The book begins with a litany of sound arguments about why typography matters, and why it should be looked at as crucial to the law profession. But needless to say, nearly all the advice presented herein is equally applicable to writers or any professional services-based small business, not to mention graphic designers, students, and type mavens.

And it can be extremely helpful to have reason on your side in adverse typographic conditions. I can remember vividly a situation on a job in which, when questioned about a decision by a client, I referenced Bringhurst, but had a hard time appealing to her sense of artistic taste; as aesthetics are necessarily subjective, she simply disagreed. In this case, I would have done well to bring Butterick into the argument, so logically sound are his arguments, as you would expect from a professional lawyer.

And this is where Typography for Lawyers really shines. No matter how careful you are about following the rules of beautiful typography, at some point, you will butt heads with a client who simply disagrees with a practice you’ve refined through years of careful study. I won’t say that you must always win such arguments, or even that it’s always necessary to try to convince your clients. But often, clients just want to believe that your detailed choices of color, typeface, leading, and so on are not just arbitrary, but have a firm basis in theory, logic, or both. Butterick will help you refine your reasons for making the aesthetic decisions you do and defending them. In short, this book functions especially well as a reference for typographers and designers with argumentative clients.

For example, Butterick often states a rule, then – amazingly – cites the most often counterarguments and why they don’t hold up. Consider, for example, his treatise on using a single space after periods. Following the statement of his case, he provides a few objections:

Every lawyer I know uses two spaces. A core principle of this book is that legal documents are governed by the same rules of typography as any professionally typeset book, newspaper, or magazine. If you agree, the fact that lawyers habitually diverge from these rules is irrelevant.

Good arguments can be made for both options. Except that it’s not a matter of argument. One option has the support of typography authorities and professional practice; one option does not. The issue is not ambiguous.

Additionally helpful are the tables and charts throughout that offer reminders of solutions to common typesetting problems (e.g., shortcuts for most every typographic detail from em dash to left curly quote) for Mac and PC, as well as HTML.

Fear not. Typography for Lawyers doesn’t just cover the basics. The book still contains a great deal that will surely appeal to the seasoned but discerning typographer looking to delve deeper into the finer ingredients of that perfect typographic recipe. More advanced considerations of type history in later chapters (such as a thorough recounting of the birth of Times New Roman), alternative suggestions for commonly used fonts, and more advanced page layout considerations (such as options for setting tables) are likely to please even the most advanced designer.

Typography for Lawyers doesn’t aim to be a replacement for The Elements of Typographic Style. It is, however, an excellent supplement, and solid further reading on refining the details of excellent typographic habits. It’s also extremely helpful when friends, family, or clients come to you looking for type advice, as this group is more likely to respond to concrete, well-reasoned advice from Butterick than Bringhurst’s often verbose and poetic prose. In the end, Typography for Lawyers is a solid, contemporary companion to the classics, and deserves a spot beside even the most celebrated texts as a comprehensive work in its own right.

For continued typographic advice, be sure to visit Butterick’s blog at typographyforlawyers.com. He also recently published Equity, a serif workhorse that, like the book, is designed for lawyers, but will surely appeal to a broader typographic audience.

“The most important thing is to wake up in the morning and ask yourself, ask your soul, must I write? If I don’t, will I die?”

I had never been in the position to give such advice, but recently, an student studying graphic design in Germany contacted me to ask a few questions about type.

Recently, I was contacted by a design-minded German philosophy student named Anton. His questions were thorough and thought-provoking. And I knew upon reading them that they would require equally honest and thorough responses.

With his permission, I publish them here, because I think both his questions and my answers contain some information that may be helpful or interesting. Also, I was touched by the work he put into his letters, and I was proud to have the opportunity to correspond with him.

Keep in mind, I am by no means attempting to create such a hierarchy between myself and this student as that which we may place between Rilke and whomever he was writing to. I merely preface this with a nod to the German master because it was from his sage wisdom that I was inspired to honor this student’s sincere questioning by offering as much as I could by way of research and detail.

Our (mostly) unedited correspondence follows.

Anton’s First Letter

By doing some web research into buying typefaces, I came across your website which has not just some excellent information about types, but is also very nicely presented. However, I did not quite find a answer to my question.

I am not a professional designer or anything like that, but merely a student who likes to present his work better than others because I believe that a) it matters, and b) I cannot help being enchanted by particular typefaces, and hate to settle for anything that I consider aesthetically inferior, simply because it is for free.

What I am looking for is hence not a full set of every stroke width of a typeface, but rather a package of ‘general typefaces’ that programmes like Microsoft Word tend to avoid, or replace original ones with their own versions (e.g., instead of Palatino they use Book Antigua, instead of Helvetica, Arial). I was particularly looking for the great standard typefaces that are not included such as Futura, Palatino/Aldus etc. Do you know if there are well-priced non-professional packages out there, that would not instantly go above 200 dollars or so, or do you have to buy them separately after all?

I would be grateful for any advice.

Best wishes,

Anton

PS – I had once tried to get to grasps with the rather famous ‘Elements of [Typographic Style]‘ and although it is very good, I was wondering if you could recommend any more basic text on the subject as many books just seem overloaded or confused in their agenda.

My Response

Thanks for getting in touch. And thank you for the kind words. It feels great to put a lot of work into something and to have someone appreciate it.

I can definitely appreciate your taste for type, and agree about not settling for the often inferior world of free type. I think I’m confused, however, about what it is exactly that you’re looking for. I’m wondering for starters if you’re using a PC or a Mac. If you’re using a Mac, you’ve got a world of wonderful type already at your fingertips. Hoefler Text, Myriad, Minion, Helvetica Neue and others are already licensed for use with OS X. If you’re on a PC (which I’m guessing you are if you’re asking about Futura, which also comes with OS X), your situation is a bit more complicated, but take heart. It will also make you a much more disciplined user of type.

If I had one suggestion for you, I would say that it pays to acquaint yourself well with a single family of type. That is, rather than looking for a package of general typefaces, I would say choose one. For what you might spent on such a package, you could get one single family and use it well. (Note that I don’t know of any packages of “general typefaces,” and if any existed, they likely wouldn’t be worth the money.) Consider this: The publication 8Faces is founded on the idea that professional designers need no more than eight typefaces. Eight. For a whole career! Consider for this purpose a family like Scala Sans, which comes in a number of weights (though I do wish it had a semibold, but that’s another topic) and is extremely versatile.

You might wonder why I’m encouraging you to buy a family, rather than a set of disparate typefaces, as you had asked. There are many reasons. The first is that, at some point or another, you’re going to have to pair type, as in the instance of typesetting headlines in one face and body copy and another. If all you’ve got is a varied bunch of type, your chances of pairing type skillfully will be decreased, whereas if you use, say, the bold weight of a single typeface for a headline and the regular or roman weight for body, you’ve got guaranteed beauty built in.

Ultimately, I’d have to know more about what you’re using your type for to suggest good type for your application. Otherwise, I could take a few stabs in the dark about things that might meet your needs. If you’re on a budget, consider a type foundry like Exljbris, who offers entire families of wonderful type for right around $100. That’s a lot of money, but as you implied, great type costs money. (Another great thing about Exljbris is that he gives away a free weight in each family.)

In a nutshell, Anton, I would say that a package of general type wouldn’t be worth it. Great type is like a great suit. Definitely spend the money on even a single one of quality, rather than a plethora of mediocrity. This, after all, seems to speak to your desire (of not using aesthetically inferior products).

Maybe I’m not getting to your question. Feel free to write back and name some specific instances in which you’d be using said type, and I’d be happy to suggest good type for that application.

Finally, some book recommendations. If you’re looking for something more digestible than Bringhurst’s Elements (although I’d argue that’s the only book on type you need), Matthew Butterick’s Typography for Lawyers is as accessible as it is practical. Also, Ellen Lupton’s Thinking With Type is a perennial favorite. (Note that a great deal of the content is available online for free!)

Make sure to write back if I’ve misunderstood you or you have further questions.

Warmest regards, Nick

Anton Writes Back

Dear Nick,

Thanks so much for your very informative answer. I am actually a Mac user, but have a rather old Macbook (6 years ago, maybe it wasn’t yet called a Macbook back then?) which comes equipped with some of the fonts you have pointed out, but lacking in others.

The biggest problem though is the reason you did not recommend ’packages.‚ I have Futura – but it’s of no use for setting text, due to its weight. I’d need Futura Bk for that. Similarly, I find that Palatino is not really good for setting text, either. So you are absolutely right, instead of getting many typefaces in their most basic variation, it would be a better idea to invest into one that you can actually adapt to the purpose.

Here is my first question: if may not be the most contemporary font, but I always quite liked Palatino. However, if I am not mistaken, the font Hermann Zapf created for text at the time was Aldus. However, there seems to be a Palatino Nova, that also has thin & text weights. I am not sure how familiar you are with the typeface, but if so, do you know if it is actually merely a more contemporary replacement, or is a new typeface that shares its name?

I also must thank you for the link to Exljbris, particularly since they offer one free weight, to get a feeling of the actual typeface. I was completely unfamiliar with the foundry, but then I don’t know many besides the obvious big ones. The one thing that I am never sure of, not being a designer or typesetter is how non-standard typefaces are perceived? Surely, one would think that typefaces are estimated according to their aesthetic value. But I feel that this might not always be the case.

To elaborate on your fashion example. Not merely does a well-cut suit cost you a certain amount of money, but the best cuts are usually seen to come from few, established ’houses‚ at any given point in time with promising newcomers merely seen as those who have the potential to join their ranks one day. Is it similar with typeface? Are their any current trends worth noting? To continue on the example: although fashion may be diverse there is an obvious trend in the past 5 years that blazers have become shorter and the fit tighter with slimmer lapels and ties to go with them: in short, very much a look akin to the early 60s.

The only trend I’ve noticed is the use of slab serifs. But this may be a subjective phenomenon and not actually account to where typography is actually at. Again, as my intention to buy suggests, I am somewhat of a ’classicist’ and believe that a good typeface will be good, if not forever, at least for a very long time. But I would still like to see whats happening at this moment. Are there actually any up and coming typefaces that, as a designer, you would recommend taking a look at?

Thanks again and best wishes,

Anton

My Final Response

Anton,

I admire how much work and thought you’ve clearly put into your questions and comments. I’ll do my best to do your work justice. Here goes.

For starters, I’ve never quite understood why Palatino has such a bad wrap. I may be alone, but I think it’s one of Zapf’s better faces. We see a lot of Zapfino and Optima nowadays, and I’m pretty fed up with both. But Palatino still has some charm to me. I wouldn’t blame you, however, if you find that it isn’t good for setting text. I’d wonder what type of text you’re setting, but I have a few faces I’d recommend. If you’re looking for something that has the character of Palatino, but is more versatile (and perhaps more reputable), let’s look at some type history.

Palatino is a Renaissance face. (You might hear it referred to as ‘Old Style,’ but I prefer Renaissance, which is more descriptive.) These faces are based on the 15th century writings of scribes using a broad nib pen. Some of the digital revivals of this kind of type are really exquisite today, and are the result of a great deal of research and design. I’ll give you two of my favorite suggestions in this category.

The first is Jonathan Hoefler’s Requiem. Hoefler designed this particular typeface when he was 22, which still blows my mind on an almost daily basis. It’s distributed by Hoefler & Frère-Jones, and if you’re looking for sophisticated type, you can’t do any better. Their craft and attention to detail is nothing short of extraordinary. Requiem in particular has a number of features that add to its versatility. For example, it has optical sizes, which means that the letter proportions are slightly different depending on if you’re setting small text, running text, or display text. It also has some gorgeous decorative ligatures in its italic. It’s just a gorgeous and highly usable typeface that will last you a lifetime.

Minion is another excellent Renaissance face. Since you’re on a Mac, I would check and see if this is already on your machine. Minion has been bundled with OS X for a number of years, and you get quite a broad selection of weights and styles (regular, medium, semibold, bold, and bold condensed and their italics). If not, you can purchase a solid set for about what you’d pay for Requiem. It doesn’t quite have the lavish charm of Requiem, but it works just as hard. (To boot, it was what Slimbach chose to typeset The Elements of Typographic Style, so you’d be hard pressed to find much fault with it.)

Either of these faces would meet your needs for setting text quite well. But I only suggest them because you mentioned Palatino. If you’re looking for something sans-serif for text, you could always go with Erik Spiekermann’s iconic Meta, or one of my personal favorites, Martin Majoor’s lovely and legible Scala Sans. The entire packages of both of these fonts are pricey, but you could get a really long way with just a regular and bold and their italics. The reason for this is that new advances in digital type technology allow a greater number of glyphs per font, so these sets combine what used to be a number of fonts (one for small capitals, a few for different types of numbers, etc.).

I understand your concern about passing trends in type, but, as in the case of the Renaissance typefaces I mentioned earlier, much of the type we use now has been beautiful for 500 years. It’s definitely not going anywhere. That said, there are a number of new foundries cropping up, and talented type designers are everywhere. (Check out Type Together and Canada Type, for just a few examples.) Let’s stick with the fashion metaphor, which serves us well. Ultimately, a number of the faces I’ve suggested are like Burberry. Many of their garments retain the look and feel of what was produced around the turn of the century. Beautiful textiles in extremely detailed cuts. Type is the same way. The reputation that typographers like Hoefler & Frère-Jones and Erik Spiekermann have made for themselves will outlast our typesetting days. Quality type is an investment, but you can rest assured that nothing you buy that I’ve recommended will go out of style.

Regards and happy typesetting, Nick

Preface

Two days ago, Khoi made a brief blog post describing a short film in which he explains the aesthetics of grid systems and their personal value to him. The video, directed by Raafi Rivero, contains a cinematically gorgeous interview with Khoi and is an original interpretation of the traditional Q&A-type bit.

You can see the video below:

http://vimeo.com/31355402

Removing Subjectivity

In a fast-cutting sequence, Khoi builds his thesis:

“I’m trying to remove all the decision making from graphic design…get more and more objective…The grid is a tool for me to impose order and logic and law…there’s a framework.”

“If you remove all subjectivity, you get some essential truth, some core idea that’s not clouded by inaccuracies, or approximations, or subjective feelings.

Design is All About Subjective Feelings

For human beings, emotions are innate. Research in affective neuroscience has repeatedly shown that all normally developed mammals demonstrate emotional tendencies that arise in conjunction with the same instinctual drives that help them know how and when to, say, gather food (Jaak Panksepp, Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). This means that mammals have evolved with emotional instinct that have been as necessary to their survival as nourishment.

As a method of interpersonal communication, therefore, design is all about subjective feelings. Why should we attempt, through the imposition of order, to negate that which makes us truly human? Humanity is messy. Design, if done well, speaks to the human condition. To design, or indeed to create any art, so as to neutralize our emotional response robs us of the capacity to relate to it.

A Plea

Enter KernType, the kerning game. Crafted by interaction designer Mark McKay, this beautifully designed and exquisitely engineered web application gives you notoriously difficult words (how I’ve often labored with the word “Type” in setting branding materials for this site!) that progress in difficulty and allows you to kern them, showing your placement against the suggested kerning.

Check it out at type.method.ac.

(Via @timahrens)

Further Reading

• “The Three Letter Approach to Kerning” by Ilene Strizver
• “How to Kern Type [Well]“ by Cameron Moll

Photo via 9to5mac.com

Like you, I was deeply saddened to hear of Steve Jobs’s passing. And—I’m guessing—like you, I also learned about his death on a device he invented. I’ve been spending a great deal of time trying to sort out my feelings about this, wondering whether I should add to the conversation.

Yesterday, my conclusion was that, because I’m not specifically a technology blogger, I can just tweet something about what Jobs meant to me personally and professionally, pay my respects, and move on. Today, however, I’ve decided to at least attempt to address what his legacy has meant to me, and how I’m making sense of a post-Steve world.

Part of this decision was based on my realization that Jobs’s innovations that most affected me were not necessarily the iPod, iPhone, or iPad, but rather the Apple approach to popular typography.

Ultimately, it was Steve’s early love of typography that paved the way for Apple’s emphasis on the typographic. According to Simon Garfield, Steve discovered calligraphy after dropping out of Reed college and, with the help of designer Susan Kare, Jobs developed a number of typefaces, among them Geneva and Chicago, the latter of which you’ll recognize from the UI of the first generation iPod. It was this type development that resulted in the Macintosh being shipped with a veritable plethora of type.

Fast forward to today. OS X now ships standard with dozens of beautiful, professional typefaces not readily available on the Windows platform: Hoefler Text, Minion, Didot, and Baskerville, to name just a few. If it doesn’t completely blow your mind that fonts from Hoefler & Frere Jones are available to you seconds after you boot up your computer for the very first time, it should. Think about what had to happen in terms of licensing for that to come to fruition.

But I Digress

I’ve been thinking about this comment since. The next morning at work, I shared it with my boss when I got to work and we were talking about the tributes we had read and how we were handling the news. “But his legacy as a human and the devices he invented were so enmeshed,” he retorted. I thought this was a poignant thought, and  have continued to hold their voices in dialogue in my head.

Further Reading

In order to recall his humanity, I’ve curated a few articles that I think do a beautiful job of momentarily decoupling Jobs from his iconic status and shedding light on his personality, his sense of humor, his humanness.

• “Universe Dented, Grass Underfoot” by John Gruber
• “For Steve” by Frank Chimero
• “In Which I Unwittingly Befoul An Otherwise Fitting Tribute to the Late, Great Mr. Jobs” by Jeffrey Zeldman
• “Steve Jobs Was a Kind Man: My Regrets About Burning Him” by Brian Lam