Julie and I watched a wonderful documentary on DVD last night, Helvetica, about the development and cultural impact of the eponymous typeface, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The movie made me think about how wonderful Helvetica is, but more broadly how fonts/typefaces condition the emotional impact of the printed word. I am particularly fond of Gill Sans, which is ubiquitous in Britain, but I'm not sure how much my affection for Gill Sans depends on my affection for British things. I like GS's clean lines, but it seems notably more sly than Helvetica, which is straightforward and plain. Gill Sans wears granny glasses and likes cool jazz. It retains the clarity and unfussiness of Helvetica -- though "retains" is not the right word, because it was invented by Eric Gill decades before Helvetica came about -- but softens Helvetica's hard edge. Ahhh...
Helvetica also reminded me how much I love contemporary Dutch design. Holland really is the place to go if you love design. I hate de Stijl's ultramodernist rigor, but somehow out of that came a sense of joy and whimsy that permeates so much Dutch graphic and interior design work. Amsterdam is such a pleasure to visit, not only for its centuries-old architecture and its wonderfully walkable urbanscape, but also because it's so much fun to immerse oneself in the cheerful, inventive world of Dutch design.
Finally, Helvetica made me reflect on how much something as simple as the quality of a line can affect one's mood. Two of my favorite cartoonists are Herge, the creator of Tintin, and Joost Swarte, a contemporary Dutch graphic designer (follow the link to his terrific website). There is something completely hypnotic (to me) about their lines. I'm not sure how to explain it, even to myself. But I want to live in the worlds they create with the qualities of the lines they put to paper. I think, again, it has to do with why I like Gill Sans, why Arts & Crafts architecture is so emotionally appealing, and why tulips are my favorite flowers: I like the lines in life to me clean but soft and expressive, and what I want them to express is restrained cheerfulness, and modest delight.
Odd, maybe, but there you are. Basically, I'm a hobbit with Elvish tendencies. Anyway: viva Gill Sans! Viva Helvetica! I want to hear about your peculiar emotional relationship with fonts.
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Oh. My. God. There are other people in the world who have a favorite typeface? Mine's Garamond! I feel like I'm finally home!
There's a fascinating article about the effect of typefaces on road signs here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/magazine/12fonts-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
I like the Gill Sands, I hadn't seen it before.
I use all uppercase Trebuchet MS for my phonics lessons, it's very easy to read, it's actually quite similar to Gill Sands. There's a reason WAL-MART is all uppercase and in nice clean letters, that's the same reason I picked a nice clean uppercase font for my struggling remedial reading students.
Like Mike, when I was writing papers for school, I knew what the widest and skinniest fonts were. (And was also prone to 1.2 or .8 margins, but that was before I became a Christian.)
Century Gothic. Love the ArtDeco look.
I hate Times New Roman, won't touch Gill (rather irrationally, since the only thing I dislike is that its designer, Eric Gill, was a hypocrite and sexual pervert), have a fondness for Arial...but my only true love among fonts is Georgia. Definitely classier and easier to read, if I can trust my eyes on this matter.
Histor
Further to your Longenecker post on CS Lewis and Tolkein, while researching some fonts for an event my daughter-in-law is arranging in Wales, I found this web page most entertaining
http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=705&nb_ppp=50&text=The+Ty+Newydd+Country+Hotel
Try out all manner of Elvish and Hobbity things while you wonder what font Peter might pick to record Aslan's antics... imago dei n'all...
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