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.
CJ: Any advice for someone who wants to get into typography? Can you actually make a living designing letters?
JH: You absolutely can make a living designing letters - hence the profession "type designer"! Illustrative lettering makes up the bulk of my freelance work. You can work on a huge variety of projects, from book cover type to logo work - sometimes other designers will ask me to do lettering for a logo they are working on too - to magazine headlines to advertising work. The main advice I can give to an aspiring typographer is "Practice, practice, practice". I, like most people, started working with type by manipulating existing fonts or tracing crazy letters from old Dover books. The more you do it, the better you get. At one point you work up such a mental reserve of experience and visual information that you can draw new letters without closely referencing existing ones. It just takes time, patience, and a drive to want to do it.
CJ: Be honest, what fonts do you like to use in Microsoft Word?
JH: I don't use Microsoft Word. BUT, if I was going to say a universal font that I like for web and whatnot, it’s Georgia, particularly italic, and the lighter weights of Helvetica. But ONLY the lighter weights.
CJ: Why do you think people get so passionate about fonts?
JH: I think people generally love language, words, phrases, and quotes so to see a great word illustrated appropriately typographically can be beautiful. Illustrated type is a very accessible kind of art. People with no background in art or design can look at a really beautifully drawn word and appreciate it and you don't have to be on some higher cerebral plane to get the meaning of it. I think designers get passionate about fonts because to be an "expert" in font use and recognition makes them feel as though they are "expert" designers. But like anything, just because you have the knowledge doesn't mean you can apply it perfectly in every context. In my opinion, the really great designers are ones who have a good working knowledge of fonts, but maybe aren't a walking font encyclopedia, and are mostly just good at using what they know appropriately.
CJ: What’s your opinion on Ikea changing their font to Verdana? Do you think everyone has the right to be hyped up about it?
JH: I'm not a huge Verdana fan, so I was a bit bummed about it. I understand their reasoning behind it - wanting to be consistent across web and print media - but it's generally accepted that you'll be more limited on the web than in print in terms of type. That would be like saying, "I can't use this awesome hand-lettered word in my logo because I can't get the font to work online." That sort of thinking would really limit designers.
CJ: Why do you think Helvetica has such a cult following?
To be honest, I have no idea. I think it's a boring font. It definitely is a very useful font, but not worthy of its cult status. Helvetica is great if you want the type to not be the focus of whatever you're working on. It becomes invisible because we're so used to seeing it, which is great for things like information graphics where the information is the most important part and if the type had personality it would take you that half-second longer to absorb the information. I also think it's relatively difficult to work with. It's hard to make Helvetica look really good. The lighter weights are nice and elegant and the thickest weights can be nice for their boldness but everything in between is just too vanilla for my taste.
CJ: What do you feel about anti-font campaigns like 'Ban Comic Sans'? Are they valid?
JH: I actually think that all the bad fonts should never be banned. They are perfect red flags for clients with poor taste or "designers" that have no idea what they're doing.
CJ: Can you tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica? If yes, please share your secret.
JH: Absolutely. It's easy if you look at how the letters terminate. Helvetica almost always terminates on a perfect horizontal, look at the "s", or a perfect vertical, look at lowercase "r". Everything is far more monoweight: consistent widths.
CJ: Any chance we can convince you to take this quiz? No cheating! Share with us your score.
JH: 20 of 20 correct.
jessica hische, typography, font, go font urself