Legible?
Gerard Unger 1992 Suddenly legibility is under siege. While printed text, just like God, has been declared dead a few times, legibility, until recently, was still considered sacred. However, during the past few years, many doubts have surfaced. In trade magazines, panel discussions, and in the hallowed halls of graphic design, new interpretations of legibility are being considered. Wim Crouwel (graphic designer and former director of the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen) was recently quoted as saying that everything we knew about legibility twenty years ago is now invalid because the notion of legibility has been stretched so much since that time. We are inundated with so many different texts in such varied manifestations that we have become used to everything and can read anything without difficulty. In Eye No. 3 (May 1991), Michele-Anne Dauppe suggests that legibility relied on set rules and could be measured against absolute standards that were obtained through optical research. Those rules no longer apply, she believes. The standards are shifting and legibility is pushed to extremes. Two issues of Emigre magazine (No. 15, 1991 and No. 18, 1991) contribute to this discussion. In Issue No. 15, Jeffery Keedy states that too many people strive to omit ambiguity (which is exactly what good, legible, typography aims at).
Rudy VanderLans, Zuzana Licko, spreads of the essay Legible? from Emigre#26, 1993
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