Initial Thoughts
Despite a bit of a slow pace to the film, I did actually enjoy parts of it. The film forced me to think about typefaces in a new way, with the concept of identical letters and the use of graphs to make a pleasing font. Rather than typefaces being only a part of art, such as with book and album covers, it forced me to see them as their own works of art.
Rick Poynor
Type is saying things to us all the time. Typeface expresses a mood, an atmosphere. [It] gives words a certain coloring.
I’ve always thought of lettering and typefaces as an important part of art, and the film only helped solidify this thought. Poynor explains perfectly; that the simple appearance of a letter or word can change the perspective entirely.
David Carson
Don’t confuse legibility with communication. Just because something is legible doesn’t mean it communicates and… doesn’t mean it communicates the right thing.
This is another quote that caught my attention for a similar reason; that communication is in the eye of the beholder, just like art. It also reminded me of a similar issue of accessibility. Just as Carson says, legibility is not always communication, and the same is true when it comes to inaccessible texts. Articles and books mean nothing if the reader and/or consumer is unable to understand what the author is trying to communicate, and typeface is another example of this in relation to dyslexia-friendly fonts.
Erik Spiekermann
I mean, everyone puts their history into their work.
Yep. I’m going to be relating something to writing and art again. Just like a novel or painting, typeface has a history; a history of how it was made, when it was used the most, why it was popular. Why it was made. And these typefaces are even used to record and make a statement out of history itself. They are given personal touches through a simple choice, such as whether the type is a serif or sans serif, or how unique each letter is. And those design choices say something about a person’s history, even though it isn’t obvious or at all known.
