I just read a piece in the current issue of Computer Arts magazine by Jason Arber of pixelsurgeon.com about what he calls “typographic overload”.
He has a theory that “there exists an international cabal of typographers with a secret agenda to stop honest designers like you and me from doing our jobs, by clogging up our already buzzing heads with a myriad of [font] choices”.
According to his theory, the evil font designers of the world are trying to hold him back from his job by forcing him to wade through thousands of font samples for hours and hours. And he wants it to stop: “Let’s draw a line in the sand and send a message to these evil purveyors of type, telling them that we have enough fonts…”
He reassures himself by debunking the necessity for new typefaces: “Surely we have enough fonts by now. Do we really need another version of Garamond, another clean sans serif, another pixel font, or another handwritten font, for crying out loud?”
(Ironically enough, there is an article 8 pages later in the magazine featuring the type designer Gerben Dollen and his new font, RES.)
To answer Mr Arber and the rest of the people who have and will ever ask if we really need more fonts:
Yes yes yes yes yes! In fact, I would say we need more (bring ‘em on)!
As long as there are new design problems, there should always be new design answers. In many cases, the answer includes a new font! Even when there aren’t new problems, there are surely always better ways to approach the old ones.
Compare fonts with cars, for instance (I love comparing fonts with other things). The problems of driving from Point A to Point B have changed very little in the past 50 years, but you don’t see automobile manufacturers ceasing to innovate on existing standards, do you? Classic cars are always cool (I drive one myself), but for those who require such things, modern cars make use of new technologies, are much more efficient, comfortable (though that’s arguable), and relevant to current styles. The same goes with fonts.
But I rest my case. It is clear that Mr Arber’s article was written with a tone of sarcasm and sensationalist humor, and I don’t want anyone to think I took him too seriously. Regardless: stagnation of new font designs is not the solution to regaining the hours lost in your font searches.
MY theory (for what it’s worth) is that we don’t need less fonts; what we need is a better means by which to FIND our fonts. The problem doesn’t lie in the constant innovation of typefaces, but in the lack of innovation in the tools we use to find them.
The next time I see a list of fonts arbitrarily sorted alphabetically, I am going to puke up a huge ball of the dust that’s been forced down my throat ever since I started looking at type specimens! If I don’t know the name of the font that’s sitting there waiting to be the perfect solution to my design problem, how the hell am I going to know that it’s name starts with a T?! By wasting my time with everything from A–S? And even then, how will I know that U–Z doesn’t have a better solution?
When was the last time you chose to read a book because its title began with a C?
Even if fonts are sorted by their concrete formal qualities or historical design information (both of which can be helpful sorting methods), I am limited to what I THINK I want. If there’s a better solution to my problem that exists outside of my pre-conceived set of guesstimated guidelines, then I want to see it!
I think it’s time for us to embrace this amazing thing called “digital technology” and use it to our sorry font-needing advantage. Dynamic sorting systems that utilize qualitative keywords and other detailed tags are much more likely to return relevant results than the antiquated systems our forefathers used to browse their limited physical libraries hundreds of years ago. Those methods worked fine when people had a few dozen fonts at their immediate disposal, but designers nowadays (as Mr Arden points out) have tens—maybe hundreds—of thousands of choices.
I thought hard about this topic for my graphic design senior degree project at MassArt, and continue to do so now in my work at MyFonts. Given that, I’m probably a bit more worked up about this subject than most people. However, that’s still no excuse to make already sleepless designers wade through endless lists to find what they need. People shouldn’t have to find fonts, the fonts should find the people.
October 25, 2006 at 3:38 am |
Very interesting!!! Thanks!!
October 25, 2006 at 5:25 am |
What the hell is happening with these people? Massimo Vignelli said the same thing at AtypI Lisbon.
If you don’t need so many typefaces, just don’t use them. I also don’t need so many pixel illustrations, but do I care? Of course not!
If every single person could only choose six typefaces, probably they choose six different typefaces from another person, and so on. At the end, we will still need these myriads of fonts in order to satisfy everyone.
November 6, 2006 at 11:19 pm |
It comes down to need versus want. I find that the older people get, the more they’re prone to bouts of nostalgia about times of old, even times before their own. In the case of Vignelli, it would be a messy pre-digital era where choosing typefaces for projects wasn’t an easy or pleasant task. But maybe it’s more complicated and pompous than that. Maybe Vignelli means to challenge other designers by limiting their options. Questionable, considering the multitude of choices and conveniences out there. It’s like giving your friend a million bucks and telling him that he can’t use it to buy anything but jazz albums.
The pixelsurgeon thing sounds more like a joke to me. It’s not pixel surgery to actually turn off new font releases from one’s priorities. To spin an old saying, clogging happens — especially in a digital age. There is a simple solution to clogging, and that is organization. It’s the absence of that obvious solution from the argument that makes Mr. Arber’s comments curvily imply that graphic/web designers are a flighty bunch who fall into professional indecision every time a new font comes out. Not nice.
November 15, 2006 at 11:19 am |
Me too!!! More, more, MORE fonts!
(P.S. I like your green Nova. Both my husband and my son have Nova’s they’re restoring.)
December 12, 2006 at 7:46 pm |
You are absolutely right: the number of fonts available is not the problem (there can never be too many fonts!); rather, the means of searching for the perfect font must be improved. Digital technology has improved the way we index and search for many things. Why not fonts? Bring on the long tail of type.
January 9, 2007 at 11:23 am |
Font indexing is fundamental otherwise you’d end up with thousands of fonts installed on your systems that would grind the PCs to a halt.
July 16, 2007 at 9:26 am |
Totally agree! and like your reasoning.
DP
December 5, 2007 at 5:00 pm |
The “Dynamic” organization of fonts! Now that, as my father use to say, is possibly the best idea since sliced bread!
That is what I need. Fonts organized into simular groups, not just family groups. I think I want to use Bookman, but a Times or Centry may work better, but if you could see them stacked next to each other to compare…..
I’m so excited by this idea I can barely type!
When I started out in the sign business, I used a Gerber Signmaker IVb. State of the Art Computer driven vinyl cutter. It held 8 fonts cards at a time, ohhhh! I had 8 more font cards in my desk, we were crazy, on the edge for having that many fonts to choose from! Flash ahead 25 years, teaching myself how to work a PC along the way, and, yes I do spend hours a week searching for “THE FONT” of the moment.
Who do we talk to about getting this font organizing going ? I’M IN !!