When I began telling my friends that I was writing a book about fonts, they wanted to know two things. The first was Why? The second was: Could I please help them choose the ideal font for their CV, their book proposal, their emails?
I was also given two pieces of advice. Don’t use Arial when Helvetica will do. And I’m awfully sorry, but writing about fonts will ruin your life. The first I understood, as Arial is widely regarded as being a clone of Helvetica, and a less classy one. The second I just denied. People in the know (typographers, type designers, graphic design professors) warned me that fonts would soon become an obsession, and without knowing it I would wake up one day to find I was no longer a normal human being but a typomaniac. This term, popularized by the German designer Erik Spiekermann, means one is unable to walk past a sign or shop fascia (or pick up a book or a menu) without needing to identify the font. Sometimes this is easy, and one moves on, and sometimes it is infuriatingly elusive and can wreck your whole day unless you nail it.
I was also given two pieces of advice. Don’t use Arial when Helvetica will do. And I’m awfully sorry, but writing about fonts will ruin your life. The first I understood, as Arial is widely regarded as being a clone of Helvetica, and a less classy one. The second I just denied. People in the know (typographers, type designers, graphic design professors) warned me that fonts would soon become an obsession, and without knowing it I would wake up one day to find I was no longer a normal human being but a typomaniac. This term, popularized by the German designer Erik Spiekermann, means one is unable to walk past a sign or shop fascia (or pick up a book or a menu) without needing to identify the font. Sometimes this is easy, and one moves on, and sometimes it is infuriatingly elusive and can wreck your whole day unless you nail it.
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