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

Keedy believes that life is full of ambiguity, which is what makes it interesting. His typefaces emphasize this belief. In that same issue Zuzana Licko proclaims “You read best what you read most.” She hopes that her typefaces will eventually be as legible and easy to read as Times New Roman is today. She also states that letters are not inherently legible but become more legible through repeated usage, and that “legibility is a dynamic process.” In issue No. 18, Phil Baines fully agrees with these statements and goes one step further when he adds that “the Bauhaus mistook legibility for communication.” There seems to be a general consensus that the ultimate legible typography is extremely dull. It overshoots the mark because no one feels invited to read it. [...] Although typographers would like to pride themselves on the logic and precision of their profession, it is in fact not so clearcut. Typography seems exact because much of it has been done in the same way for so long. There are really only a few fundamentals that are set: we read from left to right and from top to bottom. Letter shapes and letter sizes are reasonably limited. But beyond that we rely primarily on emotion.