TYPE AS ART By Richelle Szypulski
“You have two gob
blets before you.” -beatrice warde
One is of made of solid gold, decorated with the most exquisite of patterns imaginable and encrusted with precious gems. The other is crafted of transparent glass, crystal-clear and “thin as a bubble.” Both are filled with the same shimmering crimson wine. And according to Beatrice Warde, the goblet you choose defines not only who you are as a wine connoisseur, but as a typographer. So, which will it be? Warde was an American typographer, writer and scholar, and this metaphor is taken from her 1955 book, The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible. In her eyes, if you go with gold, you know nothing of wine or design. Her theory argued that the best way to convey a message was simply with the message itself: straightforward, uninterrupted, not embellished, not cluttered. Transparent. In typographic terms, this meant that the best type out there was the kind you don’t even notice. An example of that is the type you’re reading right now, Gill Sans Light. You don’t pay attention to the inner counter of the lowercase “a.” You don’t see the rectangular dots above the “i.” And you don’t know that ironically, its designer, Eric Gill, and Warde were actually friends and occasional lovers. You just read the words. You care more about the wine than the glass. While this theory absolutely serves a purpose in terms of readability, many have come to argue that both goblets are just as valuable. What Warde failed to mention is that either way, the wine still tastes the same.
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In Simon Garfield’s book, Just My Type, he does not discredit Warde’s views, however he does regard them as severe and restrictive. “While her theories chide the flashy, they do not reward the curious or the experimental,” Garfield says. “...To deny the idea that type itself can be the message is to deaden excitement and progress.” In saying this, he offers the viewpoint that the best application of typography occurs when experimentation with creativity is founded in the basic principles of type design. The message is clearest when there is a balance.
According to Garfield, the most important questions when analyzing or choosing a type have become:
Does it fit the role it was intended for? Does it get its message across?
Does it add something of beauty to the world?
Readability Legibility & Creativity
From Garfield’s questions, one can gather three applications for typography and designing with glyphs, all of which are equally as valid depending on the purpose that they serve. First there is design for readability, a focus on the message, which is Warde’s song and dance and is most applicable for body copy, captions, books and other large bodies of text. Then there is designing for legibility, for the role. In this type of design, the particular chosen typeface is adding some sort of personality to the text. For example, a wedding invitation may use a detailed, elegant script such as
Rochester,which isn’t exactly ideal for
legibility, but it gives the invitation a character, a tone and a mood. After all, type is meant to be the visualization of the spoken word. Design for readability is more effective at conveying tone and inflection and feeling through words.
Third is designing for creativity, the beauty. This is when the type may become indecipherable or extremely hard to read, but if done correctly, the intention is not for the viewer to read the words to get the message, but to view the piece as a whole. The first two, legibility and readability are definitely applications of typography, but what about the third? Once a type has been manipulated so that it is no longer or never was readable, is it still type? Or has it become a work of art?
As Warde compared the typed message to wine, many contemporary designers and typographers have chosen to compare it to music, which is the way I prefer to look at it. I see fonts as I do artwork.: completely subjective. I do agree that some fonts are too often misused and misunderstood, which in turn distorts the context of the typeface itself. But I do believe that there are no “bad fonts.” Just as an artist makes conscious (or careless, and misinterpreted as conscious) decisions to create an abstract work of art that doesn’t necessarily follow the rules, type designers absolutely have the right to manipulate the glyphs in any way their hearts desire. It’s up to the typographer or designer to translate the font into a coherent message. The type designer is just providing the tools with which to do so, just as a guitar is not music. I look at typefaces the same way I see the keyboard itself, as raw materials with which you can express an idea or communicate a message. So, it’s entirely up to the user to create something beautiful or something “bad.” And many share this point of view. In the 1960 issue of Print magazine, Robert N. Jones said, “It is my belief that there has never been a typeface that is so badly designed that it could not be handsomely and effectively used in the hands of the right ... designer.” Albeit, this was before it became exceptionally more accessible to become a font designer. More recently, Jeffrey Keedy, a contemporary designer said, “Good designers can make use of almost anything. The typeface is the point of departure, not the destination.” To me, type is art. Like music, it doesn't always have to shout at you to get your attention. Sometimes, especially in films or cafes, a light ambient melody isn't necessarily noticed or picked out of the atmosphere, but it plays a huge role in creating that atmosphere. That's how I think of type that is designed for legibility. In some cases, the music/typeface does need to be cranked up to full volume to work its magic. Just like you can't (shouldn't) listen to Hall & Oates' "You Make My Dreams Come True" at any level other than full blast, sometimes typefaces need to command attention. Sometimes, the beauty of the lettering can be the message and what's being said with the characters doesn't exactly matter. Sometimes, all you need is an ampersand.
A typographic sink sculpture by Richard J. Evans exhibited at the Free Range Graduate Art & Design Show