Fonts are a lowly class of public employees, of whom we rarely learn their names, and who can upset the pleasure of our day by their inappropriate appearance. Some work so long we can not remember when they first appeared. Others, thankfully, come and go in a nano-moment. Some we would love to fire.
If you are tired of your own confusion and lack of sophistication, you can educate yourself by reading Simon Garfield’s Just My Type: A Book About Fonts. You may resist picking up this book; but once you begin reading, you will have a new interest to fill your waking hours.
As the author explains, there are so many different fonts, which are the complete sets of letters of a typeface in one particular size and style, and so many different types, even the most knowledgeable of typographers can become lost. These designers of fonts both revere and chafe at their long tradition, in a continuous battle for our attention and retention, discarding old fonts that have worn out their usefulness, and designing new ones for all our new communication devices and the old standbys of signs and books. They produce the art of our daily lives. Charles Marlin
