Comments on: Re: Typographic Overload; or, “Do we really need more fonts?”

By: James Grymes

James Grymes — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 21:00:00 +0000

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 !!

By: Daniel Pelavin

Daniel Pelavin — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:26:19 +0000

Totally agree! and like your reasoning.

By: Graphic Design Dude

Graphic Design Dude — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:23:39 +0000

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.

By: icedmocha

icedmocha — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 23:46:39 +0000

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.

By: B.J. Uhrich

B.J. Uhrich — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 15:19:09 +0000

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.)

By: Patrick Griffin

Patrick Griffin — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 03:19:39 +0000

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.

By: DST

DST — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 09:25:41 +0000

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.

By: Carlos DeMiguel

Carlos DeMiguel — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 07:38:17 +0000

Very interesting!!! Thanks!!