You're My Type

I know I'm geeky about a lot of things, but one of my favorite nerd obsessions happens to be typefaces. There is a true, often subliminal, art to a perfect typeface. For general reading purposes, you want a font that will be clean and clear, almost beyond notice. Like my faves: Sabon, Garamond, Calibri, Century, and maybe even GillSans if you're feeling funky.
For attention-seeking items like signs and book covers, I love left-field thinking, like Franklin Gothic, Broadway, Magneto, and Kaiti. Don't you even mention Comic Sans or Papyrus to me, though. Those are fonts that haven't grown up yet.
I'm not alone in my font fetish: Perpetual clean-copy winner Helvetica even has a movie dedicated to it.
So you can imagine my joy when I hit the back of a book and find the little gem below. My favorite part is when it says "the well-known German typographer." Umm....
well known to whom?
(slowly raises her hand sheepishly)
However, I do admit that I had never heard of the "famous Lyons punch cutter" that gave his name to one of my favorite typefaces. You learn something new every day.

From the book Going Clear, by Lawrence Wright. Click here for review.

Typecasting

If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you know how much I love words and that I am fascinated by typefaces.

My nerdy friends and I have ongoing discussions about our favorite fonts and the ones we really dislike (*cough cough* Papyrus *cough*). For the font that everyone loves to hate, there is even a website called BanComicSans.com.
Back in the day, the choice of typefaces was less of a chore. There were only so many that a typesetting machine could produce ― and yes, I remember those days.
With the arrival of the personal computer, everyone was able to use as many fonts as their hearts desired. And suddenly everyone became an expert, which explains how Papyrus and Ponderosa became so prevalent.
I just found out that my font obsession has a name ― typomania. According to Simon Garfield's new book Just My Type, there are a lot of people like me out there who want to identify every font they see. For a fun sneak peek at the book and its look at the history and psychology of fonts, see Garfield's recent article in the Wall Street Journal (click here).
And the first one to correctly identify the font I'm using as the body copy in my blog will get a gold star.

Print Power

There's nothing like the resounding whomp as a big, fat, healthy magazine hits your desk. It makes me absolutely giddy to see cover lines like "758 pages." Are we back to the good old days? If you have seen the September Vogue, you might think so.

It is exactly 758 pages, and it weighs in at a hefty 3.5 pounds. Yes, pounds. Can you imagine the postage bill per issue? But don't cry for them ― they have so many advertisers in the issue that you don't hit editorial until after the 200th page. There also are enough blow-ins and fold-outs that it's actually hard to turn the pages.
But I love it. I adore the scent of ink (when I can smell it over the hundreds of perfume samples). I love to feel the paper the way a Bergdorf's associate smooths cashmere scarves ― and I can tell you the difference between 80-pound and 100-pound paper in a second.
I love pixels and picas. I can throw around terms like "CMYK" and "process color" with the best of them. I like to debate saddle vs. perfect binding, and I love dipping into the well. If you know what I mean, you're in the print club. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, poor you.
Once you have ink in your veins, it's hard to remove it. I am not so old school that I don't see the allure of the new toys in the digital age, but I am enjoying the resurgence of the print world and the celebrations of the written word.
My favorite example right now is the new Pilcro collection of clothes at Anthropologie. The line has found some fun names for its pants ― Serif, Stet, and Superscript. Makes me want to get out my red china marker and go to work.