Critical Typographic Design Manifesto

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anifesto

Introduction

I You are being judged by your words, but not literally

Without a typeface, no words can be shown visually. The active action of expressing words with certain glyphs is a series of decisions made by designers. One can show a clean and clear font; one can show a grungy hand-written font. While depicting the same words, it could show a distinct difference. The difference can be further diverged with decisions on layout of typographic system.

The glyphs you chose to present your words, as well as how and where you place them, are active decisions. You are being judged by your words, but not literally.

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CRITI CISM came from different narratives The importance of typography is almost non-disputable. The problem with bad typography could lead to awkward award announcements or even mistaken ballots by confused voters (Haubursin and Bannister, 2017). Yet, that is a subscription to modernists’ functionality: as in typography has to be clear in conveying its message.

There are a lot more parameters in measuring a typographic design. Before the modernist movement, in Europe the

common typeface was used only because to keep its traditional printing presets. After the modernist movement, the new establishment was to achieve a clean and clear layout. The postmodernism that followed had a clear goal of disobeying modernism. Each had a different motif in picking fonts and typographic systems.

Typography was democratised when personal computers were commercialised. Everyone could make their own posters and

bochures with different defaults given by their computers. A new wave of criticisms against these amateur designers emerged with the internet. Because of their decisions on typography, consciously or unconsciously, people are judged by what fonts and layout they are using.

Nowadays, not everyone knows in-depth typography. Yet there seems to have a public consent on what is a bad font. And that is another narrative coming from democratisation of typography.

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and the obsession with clean design

Modernism

Modernist designer Jan Tschichold proposed that clarity of messages should be the ultimate goal in typographic design. He criticised the traditional blackletter and layout, called it Box-style for not having hierarchy. And he eventually created some guidelines as a modernist approach to typography that contains these elements: asymmetric balance of elements, content design by hierarchy, intentional white space utilisation and sans serif typography.

Tschichold described it as “a typeface expressive of our own age, free from all personal characteristics.”

Modernists’ ideology circles around productivity in conveying messages. They have an obsession about being clean and clear in their design. This idea became apparent by the popularity of Helvetica.

Helvetica is described as the most “neutral” font that its typeface can be used in almost any context. Many still praise its well-balanced design between being too handwritten and too industrialised. Tschichold described the font family as “a typeface expressive of our own age, free from all personal characteristics.”

Because of the neutralism Helvetica embodies, it is ubiquitous from logos, menus to even drug dealers' posters. In the 60s, 70s Helvetica was largely employed in almost every cooperate commercial designs. It became the new default that nobody seems to question the reasons for using Helvetica except that “it works”. It was becoming too common that it slowly was losing its own identity.

Just like the modernism’s value on typography, majority of people who subscribe to it do not dive deep into why these values should be the prime example. The emphasis on measuring with pragmatism was not always questioned.

The hysteria surrounding Comic Sans, the font emerged when it became ubiquitous after personal computers became common. Mr. And Mrs. Combs, who were also graphic designers, launched the website bancomicsans.com in 1999 as a campaign to “eradicate the misuse of Comic Sans”. Since then, they had been posting online about inappropriate use of comic sans, which includes law firms and tombstones. The website also provided a list of handwritten script fonts as the suggested substitute to Comic Sans. Creator of the font Vincent Connare explained that Comic Sans was originally designed as the speech of a digital dog. Yet, Comic Sans is ubiquitous that it can appear on restaurant menus, commercial logo, or even tombstones.

The Combs‛ campaign initially was about the misuse of the font in the wrong context. However, the echoes they got from the internet were overwhelming.

There was a lot of hatred towards the font. A flash game called Kill Comic Sans was created as a first-person shooter against the font; A bunch of memes about how imbecilic a person could be if they like comic sans. It eventually became a popular stigma that the usage of Comic Sans can only be associated with inferiority. Whoever uses comic sans regardless of the context, was crucified as “having a bad taste”.

And then, there came the defense against the hatred towards Comic Sans. It is true as they said that, in some situations, Comic Sans is a good pick among other fonts, especially when children educations are involved.

The British Dyslexia Association has named it as an easier font for children with problems in learning. A study conducted at Princeton University also suggested that harder to read fonts makes the idea “easier to recall”. So, in some contexts, it could be function better.

Comic Sans might be on the uncanny valley where it looks like handwritten script but at the same time possesses weirdly computer-generated feature. It might be too ubiquitous and ugly that it does cause nausea in some people. However, it does not mean that all the use of this font should be vilified. There are a lot of reasons to use Comic Sans, one of which is to defy the strict rules in design, like the modernists. It might be problematic in the parameter of technical typography, but we should encourage the use of it as a mean to question the standards.

Jan Tschichold in 1928 criticised the use of blackletter, Fraktur, in his book The New Typography. He described the typeface as “emphatically national, exclusivist” that they were facing “inevitable elimination” and the use of it was “retrograde”. Tschichold later was arrested by the Nazis when it came to power in 1933. Back then, they were still using blackletter in their propaganda posters and the use of sans serif was considered to be “degenerate”.

Surprisingly, the Nazi later used Futura in a 1936 Olym+ pics Poster.

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Typography Totalitarianism

After the modernist movement emerged. In the 60s and 70s, everyone turned to Helvetica and all the clean designs. It was like air that suddenly, all design had purged their individualistic designs and boxed them into the grids. In recent years, Tschichold revised his mod+ ernist idea and commented that he “detected most shocking parallel between the teaching of Die Neue Typographie and national socialism and fascism.”

The hysteria circling Comic Sans is one of the examples of dominant narratives agonising each other. Yet there is so much in between “Comic Sans is an abomination” and “If you hate Comic Sans, you don’t understand design at all”. People might be obsessed with being right and taking sides that sometimes the actual matter was not deeply discussed. There tis a more subjective way to dissect Comic Sans, including why it has bad kerning and handling space. Yet without proper conversations between users on the internet. It is much more conven+ ient to just dismiss whomever they disagree with.

The rejection on hating on Comic Sans usually based on these references. Slowly, the stigma was reversing.

Because of the original hysteria against Comic Sans, where people just hate whoever uses comic sans, the rejection about the hatred sometimes categorised people who hate it as “knows nothing about design and typography”. The “design is about solving a problem” slogan could easily be used to reject people’s opinions on Comic Sans. By assigning them as not understanding design, people can be silenced for a particular opinion.

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REPREHENDET

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REPREHENSORES

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Do not let go of the differences, hold on to it and admit the abyssal gap between everyone’s perspectives on typography. Try not to associate their personal characters with their typographic choices, that is dictatorial.