“Well, this kind of breaks away from my normal rule against reading about super-small subcultures. You know, those books about professional Scrabble players or guys who build their own tiny cabins and release weird MP3’s on their own web sites.
I spend a lot of time on the internet. Don’t judge me.
But because this book isn’t about weird PEOPLE (ostensibly) I figured it was worth a shot.
There are some interesting stories in here. A sexual deviant font designer. A gravestone with a Comic Sans inscription chiseled into the face. It’s sort of awesome that a type designer created a font that rests on a plaque planted on the moon. Overall, the most interesting thing about this book, to me anyway, is that it will instill in a person some type awareness. It’s a slightly more interesting world when you can sit in a strip mall and pay attention to the type used in the different signs. Noodles & Company? Interesting, macaroni-like. Check cashing place? Total bullshit.
So the biggest benefit from this book, for me personally anyway, will be that I have one more thing to do when I’m bored, which happens a lot.
It’s also curious to consider type designers artists. Which I do. I mean, there are a lot easier, sillier things that are arts, and this probably puts me on one side or the other of an argument here, but I firmly believe that something being useful or created with utility in mind does not disqualify that thing from being art. I, for one, am happy to own a chair that is comfortable and stylish. Or a pen.
Because this book was one I read for professional development and as part of a plan to do a seminar on books for business people, I want to add my top 3 takeaways for the average business person.
1. Like in any field, rules are meant to be broken.
People will tell you not to use more than 3 fonts on a piece, but lately we’ve seen a stylistic rise of wall hangings with phrases spelled out in WAY more. So really, today’s inexcusable rule violation is what tomorrow hangs in your aunt’s entry hall.
2. Avoid fonts that are “Amateur Magnets.”
A term I’d never heard before, this refers to fonts that tend to attract amateurs because they aren’t overtly stylized, but at the same time come off as…not boring. However, you’re better off with a boring, overused font than one that makes you appear to be an amateur. To put it more simply, how often do you think about the font used in, say, a logo, and of those times, how many did you think about the font because you loved it? Most people notice fonts when they’re hideous. So be cautious of something that “stands out”. In case anyone needs further convincing, let me put it this way. I think the best books don’t make you FEEL like they were written. You don’t imagine how hard it must have been to write the book while you’re in the thick of it. It’s through the simplicity that the real art is expressed, the effort hidden. If the average person is noticing the font of your restaurant’s menu, it’s probably not a good thing.
3. Remember, fonts are artistic property too.
You probably won’t get in trouble for it, but if you use a font in a corporate web site, logo, or anything, and especially if you start using a consistent font for brand recognition, make sure that this is a font you’ve paid for or licensed properly. Again, if you’re opening a mom&pop, you probably won’t get in trouble. But if you’re looking to make your mom&pop into Mom&PopCo.com, then be aware.
That point does bring up one thing that sticks in my craw a bit. Type is art, and I’m cool with paying for art. But as arts go, it seems like one of the least democratic, and here’s why.
If you have the money, you can pay to have a firm create a type for you. Anything from a bizarre, shitty glob of nonsense to a very traditional, highly readable font that will work just about anywhere. You can also afford to pay for a large suite of fonts. However, the average price for a font is a bit steep to me if we’re talking about experimentation.
For example, I am really enjoying the Futura font family. So I pop over to fonts.com to see about purchasing one for use on my own personal machine. I can buy a single variety for $30. So that’s one variety, $30. I can buy the whole family for a mere $492. I mean, $500 for a font. And not even a wild font, a fairly common one. $30 isn’t a ton of money, but come on.
This is clearly a very bad system, and I’ll explain why.
I really believe in the goodness of the average person, but that this goodness only goes so far. Napster, the thing we always come back to because it’s such a case for/against piracy, worked because it was free, but also, and this is the part that people are scared to mention, because it was light years ahead of the next best way to get music. Seriously. There was no way to get music that was easier and better than Napster, even if you WANTED to pay. There was no such thing as a service, even at an exorbitant rate, that was as fast, as simple, and that had the depth and breadth of collection. iTunes music store was the next best thing, and it didn’t even debut until 4 years after Napster, and even then it took another year and a half to get reasonably large. Now that iTunes has made it easy, I think a lot of people are back to paying for music again. I know that I do.
Fonts are the same way, and I think it’s left artists scratching their heads. How dare people pirate my work!? Did we learn nothing from Napster?
Well, they dare because you have the audacity to charge $30 for a single file. Foolish people have not recognized how the economy has changed in the internet age, and it’s changed in two significant ways:
1. Time is more a commodity than money. If you gather your product in a way that’s easy to browse and search, and if I can click one button and have this thing in my font menu the next time I open my word processor, you will win because you’ve saved me time.
2. It’s not a matter of deciding to charge $30 or $1. It’s a matter of $1 or nothing. If you charge too much, people will pirate. That’s how it is. The market for fonts sucks, and it’s because you’re overcharging. Because every font designer is afraid that his or her font will sell for .99-cents and then be used on a multi-million dollar corporate logo. So we put up the $30 wall. But in reality, you’re better off having your font on a million different machines at .99 cents a pop, and you’ll capture the casual fonter that way.
iFonts. It’s that easy. Make a simple site that allows you to download fonts for .99 cents, and make the terms all the same: if you pay, do whatever the fuck you want with it. Make sure there’s a window so I can add in text and see a sample. Sort things by variety, fonts that are popular for posters, for ebooks, whatever. Show me fonts in current popular use (album covers, movie posters, book covers) and give me the option to download them immediately.
I’m a believer in type, fonts, and most importantly, art. And I do believe that artists should be paid for their art. But I also think that budding artists need the same access to art that people with money have, and that’s why I would highly suggest that the font world get on board and stay relevant by creating a legitimate market that is superior to the pirate market.”