Posts Tagged ‘Typefaces’
“Type design: an exacting, arcane craft that is underappreciated for its impact on how people communicate and receive communication”*…
Jeremy Nguyen considers the typeface.
Typography is two-dimensional architecture, based on experience and imagination, and guided by rules and readability. And this is the purpose of typography: The arrangement of design elements within a given structure should allow the reader to easily focus on the message, without slowing down the speed of his reading. – Herman Zapf
* Bruce Weber
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As we squint, we might recall that it was on this date in 1945 that farmer Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colorado, planning to eat supper with his mother-in-law, tried to behead a five-and-a-half-month-old Wyandotte chicken named Mike. The axe removed the bulk of the head, but missed the jugular vein, leaving one ear and most of the brain stem intact. The chicken was still able to balance on a perch and walk clumsily. He attempted to preen, peck for food, and crow, though with limited success; his “crowing” consisted of a gurgling sound made in his throat. When Mike did not die, Olsen decided to care for the bird.
Mike achieved national fame until his death in March 1947. In Fruita, an annual “Mike the Headless Chicken Day” is held in May.
“There are now about as many different varieties of letters as there are different kinds of fools”*…
From the web design house Squidspot,
The Periodic Table of Typefaces (click here for zoomable version)
* a quote from Eric Gill, the creator of, among other fonts, the redoubtable Gill Sans (on the chart above).
As we make an effort to be as careful in choosing our letters as we are our words, we might recall that it was on this date in 1633 that the formal inquest of Galileo Galilei by the Inquisition began. Readers will recall that two months later the Holy Office in Rome forced Galileo to recant his conclusion that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe. Galileo is said to have muttered “Eppur si muove!” (“Yet, still, it moves!”).
Cristiano Banti’s 1857 painting, “Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition”
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