Computers have been an integral—some might say obsessive—part of my life since the late 70s. As people started transitioning from typewriters to personal computers, many of the bad typographic habits that were the result of the mechanical limitations of the typewriter itself—like monospaced fonts and double spacing after period—carried over. One habit that seemed hardest to break was addiction to Courier. Even at the earliest stages of the PC revolution, there were at least a few fonts one could chose to use that weren’t monospaced. Still, it was simply amazing how many people turned their $3,000 computers into typewriters by trying to duplicate that ugly typeface. There is a great little book out there, by Robin Williams (no, not that Robin Williams) called The Mac is not a Typewriter. This is a must read for anyone who wants to take advantage of the typographic features of their computer, and even for those who want to know why double-spacing after periods is wrong.
In any event, I bring this up because while I am not a real font fanatic, I do give some thought as to the fonts that I use in my documents and presentations. So I was curious about the headline in todays New York Times blog: McCain’s Optimum Look. The author, Steven Heller, solicited comments from a variety of type designers, curators, and critics of type design to analysze the McCain campaigns use of the Optima font. As I read through the surprisingly large number of comments, I found myself wondering whether I was missing something. Then I came across this last quote, which wraps things up quite nicely.
Rudy VanderLans, founder of Emigre Type
What does Optima say about Senator McCain? Nothing. It probably says more about the designer than anything else. Who, except designers, would judge a candidate by the typeface?