Posted by CatJuan on October 14, 2009
Without many of us even realizing it, fonts are a significant part of our daily lives. During the daily journey between, say, our house to place of work alone we run across dozens of fonts: On road signs, billboard advertisements, and logos of products we encounter. Many people don’t realize that behind Times New Roman, Arial, or Comic Sans was a type designer who slaved away to create the unique shapes of the letters and symbols we have come to love.
There is an undeniable charm and art to fonts. They are the first glimpse we have into the beauty of the words we read. How many of us have played around with various fonts, checking how each one fits the words we’ve written to convey its perfect meaning, until our eyes water and the words start to look funny?
To celebrate the third instalment of Go Font Urself* we’ve asked Brooklyn designer, illustrator, and typographer Jessica Hische to answer a few questions on what it’s like to live a life surrounded with the shapes of words.
Covered: type snobs, being too broke to afford good fonts, why Helvetica sucks, avoiding bad font genocide and practice, practice, practice.
Cat Juan: How and why did you get into typography?
Jessica Hische: I got into typography and hand-lettering in college, mostly because I was too broke to buy good fonts and didn't want to waste time pouring through the "10,000 FREE FONTS!!" CDs that floated around school for the three good fonts that they probably contained.
CJ: Are you a serif or a sans-serif kinda girl?
JH: Hard to say, I think generally sans-serif. Everything I draw starts as sans-serif and then I decide later if I want to make it have serifs.
More...
jessica hische, typography, font, go font urself