You go, Gutenberg.
Almost six centuries after the inventive German first tinkered with little doodads called movable type, his brainchild still is enthralling the world — even after some wiseguys claimed that the computer era would turn fonts into so much chopped liver.
On the contrary: Fonts are hot.
Skepticism over the fate of fonts is, however, understandable. From the mid-1400s until about 1950, fonts — that is, varieties of typefaces — were the tools of skilled artisans who painstakingly created printed documents by punching a piece of metal in the (backwards) shape of a letter, filling the hole with molten metal, placing it in a matrix, inking it and applying it to paper.
In the ensuing centuries, printers often were called scholar-printers because they perfected letter designs that were both beautiful and legible, that combined the best of past designs with imaginative innovations, that were works of art in their own right as well as conveyors of words.
That’s why fonts often carry the names of their creators: Garamond was a 16th Century Frenchman, Baskerville an 18th Century Englishman, Bodoni an 18th Century Italian, Goudy a 20th Century American (who maintained a type foundry, in fact, in Park Ridge).
Fonts were about emotion and history, about the feelings induced by the appearance of a line of text as well as the information conveyed.
The alphabet was not just a bunch of letters. It was a canvas.
And then came the computer and desktop publishing. Fonts were taken out of the sensitive hands of scholar-printers and placed in the grubby mitts of anybody with $19.95 or so to buy any of the plethora of software programs currently available: Titles such as “Fontographer,” “Cool Fonts” and “500 Fantastic Fonts” crowd the shelves of computer stores. People now throw around terms such as “serif” and “sans serif” with ease.
Doesn’t that make fonts seem — well, ordinary? Run of the mill? Even boring?
If anybody can switch from big, muscular letters to sporty, slanty, impish ones, from Bembo to Baskerville and back again on a whim, where’s the magic? Where’s the specialness?
If rank amateurs can do fonts, how do fonts rank?
Ah, but the magic is still there, insists Tobias Frere-Jones, a type designer for Font Bureau, a Boston-based company that sells customized fonts for commercial clients.
“The parallel that comes to mind is the advent of the microwave oven, which struck fear into the hearts of restaurant owners. Who would want to eat out, if they could make good food at home?
“But the opposite happened,” Frere-Jones said. “Once people had the means of creating different cuisines at home, they had a greater appreciation for what chefs do.”
He added that he doesn’t mind the fact that so many non-artists are manipulating fonts the same way they’d try on different pairs of shoes in a Payless store.
His credo: Bring ’em on.
“It’s a necessary part of the field being more open. Any democracy is messy. These are folks who are becoming more sensitive to fonts. It might be kind of noisy and irritating today, but it’ll be good tomorrow.”
Harry Parker, who manages Font Bureau’s office, said he first realized fonts were hip as he watched a “Cheers” episode several years ago. “A character asked somebody to look at a resume and the response was, `It would look better if you changed the font.’ I thought, `Wow. Fonts have gone mainstream.’ “
Another sign that fonts rule is the increasing number of published hardcover books that include a page in the back identifying the type style. While exact numbers are not available, several industry observers agreed that more publishers are adding such pages — called colophons — which generally include the headline, “A Note on the Type.”
Typical is this passage in the back of “Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette,” which will be published in October by Alfred A. Knopf: “This book was set in Fournier, a typeface named for Pierre Simon Fournier fils (1712-1968), a celebrated French type designer. Coming from a family of typefounders, Fournier was an extraordinarily prolific designer of typefaces and of typographic ornaments . . . Fournier’s style is considered transitional in that it drew its inspiration from the old style, yet was ingeniously innovational, providing for an elegant, legible appearance.”
Andy Hughes, vice president of production and design at Knopf Publishing Group, said his company has included a colophon in every book published during its 70-year history; such a detail endows books with an aura of hand-crafted excellence, he believes.
Increasingly, Hughes said, other publishers are imitating that practice.
“There is more awareness of fonts now than at any time in the past 25 years. With the Web, there is more attention to issues of design.”
Most authors don’t get involved in selecting fonts for their work, he added. A few big-name writers may possess such veto power, but few exercise it. “They leave it to us.”
According to a published report, however, Thomas Friedman, foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times, cringed at the galley proofs for his book “The Lexus and the Olive Tree.” published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. He hated the font, so it was changed.
Friedman’s book continues to be a best seller. Is the font responsible? You never know.
Columbia College’s Center for Book and Paper Arts is thriving, according to assistant professor Audry Niffenegger. The program — with its letterpress printing machines and papermaking materials — recently moved from cramped digs at 218 S. Wabash to a larger space at 1104 S. Wabash.
“The computer has injected a tremendous energy into this,” said Niffenegger, whose fingertips often are grubby from handling small metal type pieces, stored in wooden trays. “Font design is something that, suddenly, everyone wants to do. Students come into the program and say, `Oh, I want my own font.’ “
Indeed, fonts are used to differentiate TV shows (think of the lettering for the sitcom “Friends”), rock bands and a bevy of consumer products.
“You may not think about fonts every day, but if you were suddenly transported to a supermarket in, say, 1985, it would look incredibly dated. A lot of that would be because of the fonts in the package design,” Niffenegger said.
Yet not everyone is pleased with the computer’s impact on type design. Paul F. Gehl, custodian of the John M. Wing Foundation on the History of Printing at the Newberry Library, misses the beauty of documents bearing the mark of letterpress printing. (Some specialty publishers still set type the old-fashioned way; the vast majority, of course, use a digital publishing process.) Many font-happy hackers, he added, seek out wacky, virtually illegible type designs simply because they’re eye-catching.
“The biggest thing we’ve lost is the sense of a printed object as three-dimensional,” Gehl said. “Now, we think of it as something on a computer screen.”
He acknowledged, however, that computers have facilitated a new appreciation for an old technique. Increasingly, artists are designing new fonts on a computer and then transferring the designs to a polymer plate; the plate is used to create documents reminiscent of those compiled with the letterpress technique. The firm, earnest impression of each letter once again is visible on the page.
While type designers are enjoying a resurgence of interest in their craft, fonts cannot be copyrighted. The name of a font can be registered, but not the design, Frere-Jones said.
“Over and over again throughout the century, designers have tried to change this. The argument is always that typefaces are too utilitarian to be copyrightable.”
No one knows how many fonts exist. Scholars have identified tens of thousands, and the number increases constantly. But with so many font fanciers out there tweaking and twisting their ABC’s, will we ever run out?
With only 26 letters in the alphabet, might the English-speaking world ever face the final font?
“Well, there are a limited number of notes on a musical scale,” said Frere-Jones, “and people continue to do some pretty interesting things with those.”
ABOUT THE HEADLINE TYPE
The Tribune’s headline font family is Century, comprising four versions. Like most newspapers, the Tribune’s typographic look has changed over the years, reflecting advances in printing technology. The Century style, however, has been the underlying font throughout the newspaper’s history. Century includes:
Name: Century Book Condensed
Name: Century Book Condensed Italic
Name: Century Bold Condensed
Name: Century Bold Condensed Italic
Typography began with hand lettering, much like the Old English style in the “T” of the Tribune’s Page One flag.
ABOUT THE STORY TYPE
Bylines are set in Franklin Gothic Condensed at the size of 10 points*.
Title lines are set in 8 point* Nimrod small caps.
Initial caps are set in Century Book Condensed.
The body type of this newspaper is set in 8.7 point* Timbo, a specially commissioned version of the Macintosh type called Nimrod. Used by the newspaper since 1993, the font is distinguished by its legibility, grace and authority. It endows the newspaper with a strong, stable voice. Italic and bold italic versions also are used.
Decks, the headlines that follow the main headline, are set in Century Book, Condensed.
Pulled quotes are set in 12 point* Franklin Gothic Condensed.
Attribution, as well as photo captions and reference boxes, is set in 10 point* Franklin Gothic Book. These explanatory notes are also set in Franklin Gothic Book.
*Points are a measuring system for type, first created by Pierre Simon Fournier in his 1764 book “Manuel Typographique.” His system has been refined through the years; at present, an inch contains 72 points.
