Consider yourself blessed if you’re not a fontaholic. The affliction leads to clogged font directories on your computer, and an unavoidable prejudice toward either serif or sans serif fonts.

People who are intrigued by typography know exactly what I’m talking about. At least two or three times a year they will inextricably find themselves on some font website (there are scores of them) without consciously knowing how they got there or there or there.*

I’ve written about fontaholicism in the past. Unfortunately, despite my advocacy, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has yet to classify the malady as a recognized illness. That said, the American Psychiatric Association does sound a bit obsessive compulsive in terms of their font guidance for annual meeting posters.

If any or all of the work in this poster was prepared with commercial support, a statement “Supported by funding from [name of company]” must be noted in the lower left corner of the poster in Arial 72 point font, with no bold, italics, special colors, or other enhancement of the company name, product, or any other portions of the statement.

One wonders what sort of reaction a person would get from the APA if they used Times Roman or Comic Sans by mistake.

C.S. Lewis & Fonts

It should be acknowledged up front that C.S. Lewis was not obsessed with fonts. However, he was wise enough to recognize their significant role in communication. Good fonts could be transparent, while problematic fonts blurred the message. He highlighted one of the most significant aspects of a font’s usage—size—in a 1957 letter. He told a fellow Brit, “you’d be much wiser to get my books in the American edition as these now have larger print and better paper than our own.”

A year earlier he had discussed a related issue with his publisher. There was a problem with a Shakespeare quotation intended for the title page of Till We Have Faces.

The quotation would, I agree, look better on a page to itself, but (what is more important) I am very strongly opposed to the idea of dividing it. I agree that it ‘looks wrong as it is’ but I think it will look equally with any division whatever. I do not see why it need be printed ‘absurdly small’ to fit in as one line . . .

Now a line of that length on a page to itself would I believe, look ugly if it came anywhere near the middle of a page–because it would then seem to divide the page into two halves. But would it not look quite nice if put near the top? It would then have the properties of a frieze or dado with plain wall under it.

And we may perfectly well omit the word ‘Shakespeare’ if we think that makes a better design. But I’d prefer even a bad design to a division of the verse.

Free Books about Fonts

You can find a number of interesting books about fonts at some of the wonderful internet libraries such as Project Gutenberg. During recent historical research about Reformation-era artists, I discovered a book written by Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). Since his fame is derived from his portraits of prominent people, I was surprised he had written a guide for properly shaping letters, based on geometric principles. The introduction provides a fascinating portrait of sixteenth century artistry in northern Europe.

In our Germany . . . are to be found at the present day many young men of a happy talent for the Art Pictorial, who without any artistic training whatever, but taught only by their daily exercise of it, have run riot like an unpruned tree, so that unhesitatingly and without compunction they turn out their works, purely according to their own judgment.

But when great and ingenious artists behold their so inept performances, not undeservedly do they ridicule the blindness of such men; since sane judgment abhors nothing so much as a picture perpetrated with no technical knowledge, although with plenty of care and diligence.

Now the sole reason why painters of this sort are not aware of their own error is that they have not learnt Geometry, without which no one can either be or become an absolute artist; but the blame for this should be laid upon their masters, who themselves are ignorant of this art.

Since this is in very truth the foundation of the whole graphic art, it seems to me a good thing to set down for studious beginners a few rudiments, in which I might, as it were, furnish them with a handle for using the compass and the rule, and thence, by seeing Truth itself before their eyes, they might become not only zealous of the arts, but even arrive at a great and true understanding of them.

Dürer’s book sparked my curiosity, and a very quick subsequent search hinted at the wealth of typographical information online. For example, you can read about The Typography of Advertisements, circa 1911. There you will be warned that bolder is not always better.

“But,” some one says, “the heavier and bolder type-faces furnish a greater contrast to the white of the paper, and therefore should be easier to read.”

It is true that a greater contrast of color is furnished in the use of the bolder type-faces, but to force these greater contrasts on the eye is to literally club it into reading the text, whether or no. Are the salesman’s statements of better selling value because they are shouted loudly in direct contrast to the quiet of the office?

There may be, and undoubtedly are, some on whom this force is necessary, but to those who are sufficiently educated and intelligent to be reached through the appeal of an advertisement, the quiet dignity of the salesman’s statements made in well-modulated tones will be more attractive.

Gaze back even farther, to what was considered Early Typography in 1872. There you will discover a medieval religious order devoted to worship and manuscripts.

Reference has more than once been made to the impulse given to learning at the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries. This movement was helped forward by no one in Holland and Germany more than by Gerhard Groote, or Magnus, of Deventer, (b. 1326, d. 1370), who after studying theology at Paris, became a canon of Utrecht and Aix-la-Chapelle, and founded the Order of the Brethren and Clerks of the Common Life, generally known as the “Gemeiineslebens,” or “Frères de la Vie Commune . . .”

It was divided into the literary Brethren or Clerks, and the unlearned Brethren, who lived in different houses, but in bonds of the greatest friendship. The Clerks devoted themselves to transcribing books, the cultivation of polite learning, and the instruction of youth; and they erected schools wherever they went. The Brethren laboured with their hands, and pursued various mechanic trades. Neither were under the restraint of religious vows; but still they ate at a common table, and had a general community of goods.

There are many other curious titles available to those who choose to explore obscure typography in greater depth. A person might even wish to begin with 1891’s Specimens Of Book, Jobbing, And Ornamental Printing Type In Use In The Government Central Printing Office, Simla [India].

Fonts, fonts, fonts. As I said above, you are fortunate if they don’t draw you too deeply into their orbit. However, if you recognize you too are a fontaholic, take comfort in the knowledge that you are not alone.

* And here’s another font site I had never seen before writing this post. It has a delightful name, Font Squirrel. Once I finish writing this piece, you can guess where I will be spending some of my web surfing research time.

The Elefonts cartoon at the top of the page is a creation of talented Canadian John Atkinson, and is used with permission.