i’m a font snob (revisited)

July 14, 2003 — Leave a comment

i was putting together a corporate profile for my boss today and looking at some of the stuff that was produced before i signed on board and even the corporate profile template when i realised what i disliked about most of the work that was going into the profile. i loathed the type faces. not just the choice of type face, the usage of it too. the poor kerning, worse leading. it makes what could be a perfectly ok job, look horrendous.

and i’ve realised that it’s not just the work that we’re producing it’s a lot of the stuff i’m seeing in the newspaper. there are a couple people here that know anything about typography and i could pull their stuff out of the paper with one closed. i’m not bragging but my design style is based on type, it’s what i live for. lots of white space, good typography, a stunning visual and interesting use of colour. i love doing one colour work and i love working with interesting type faces. not necessarily modern [a lot of the new stuff is illegible and worse doesn’t have kerning pairs and… nevermind… i was getting way to technical]

my first real job in this industry was in a traditional printery, before the days of digital imaging, when Photoshop was still an ILM tool. i had a kerning knife, and i’d have to scrape the letters. i guess this is where my appreciation of type comes in. i’ve never had any formal training, although if i can find £12,000 for the next two years, i’d try to get into central st. martin’s in london. they have a MFA, that’s open to people like me without formal training but experience and one of the pathways is typography.

the money, it’s always the money. speaking of which i should be working, i just paused, cause i couldn’t see straight from exhaustion. i’m going to get back to it.

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