May 23, 2011
Printed type is no mere neutral conveyor of ideas but an artistic medium in its own right, with psychological, social, and even sexual overtones, according to this lively romp through the history of fonts. Garfield (The End of Innocence) surveys fonts from Gutenberg's dour Gothic and the elegant classicism of Garamond to the childlike faux-naïveté of Comic Sans, now so widely used for everything from medical brochures to tombstones that a movement has arisen to ban it. Along the way he revisits the sometimes lurid lives of the great typographersâincest and bestiality includedâand explores the legibility of highway signs and the subliminal messaging of presidential campaign fonts. There's much pop psychology hereâheavy, angular fonts seem male, apparently, while thin, curlicued ones are femaleâand a lot of engaging connoisseurship that occasionally goes overboard, especially when comparing look-alike modern sans serif fonts: you have to strain at gnats to distinguish the ubiquitous corporate cordiality of Helvetica from the "slightly softer and more rounded tone" of Arial. Regardless, Garfield's evocative proseâCooper Black is "the sort of font the oils in a lava lamp would form if smashed to the floor"âentices us to see letters instead of just reading them. Photos.