Select 13 font directions

In the first decade of my career, I worked for Massimo vignelli. He was a famous legendary designer who used only a limited number of fonts for design. From 1980 to 1990, most of my design projects were selected in the following five fonts: Helvetica (natural choice), Futura, Garamond No. 3, century expanded, and Bodoni.

For Massimo, this practice is an ideological choice and a disciplinary decree that complies with ethics. "In the new computer age," he once wrote, "The massive appearance and arbitrary changes of fonts have represented a new type of visual waste that threatens our culture. Among the thousands of fonts, we actually only need a few basic types of fonts, while others are useless waste products ." This makes my work very easy. Every time I want to use a Venetian Roman, why spend a few hours in bembo, sabon, and Garamond No. 3? Because for most people, such as my mother, there is no difference between fonts. Why don't you just set Garamond No. 3? It must have been that the education at a Catholic school has helped me to be absolutely sober. I am very grateful for this.

10 years later, I left my first job. You can select any font you want! This consciousness makes me crazy immediately. In an early design project, I even used 37 different fonts on 16 pages. My wife, who has also received a Catholic Education, seems familiar with this madness. She remembered that her classmates had been "taken care" for eight years and transferred to public schools: when they were finally freed from the school uniform, they began to put on their skirts to find the shortest. "Oh," she said, looking at the various fonts in my design, like a crash, "you have really become a slut !"

Yes. At that time, I was truly a bit out of the "one-man-one-wife" style of my font. Later, at least I felt like I was learning to control my behavior-just like anyone who abused drugs. I realized that the noise of many fonts was time-consuming, costly, and counterproductive-even though I never wanted to go back to the age of five fonts. Although there are still thousands of fonts to choose from on the market, my "post-peak recovery period" requires me to learn how to identify fonts and have some answers to this simple question: why select a font? 13 reasons are listed below.

1. Because it is valid
Some fonts are the perfect choice for a particular scenario. I have listed some special fonts used in brand images, which are very effective in terms of titles and even texts. But when you want to design a very small text at the bottom of your business card, Franklin Gothic is your best choice. But be cautious: Some fonts are too effective to be abused. Frutiger is used as a signage in many hospitals and airports, so now I am seeing this font and feel like I am about to perform a brain tumor check or miss the plane at Chicago airport at seven o'clock.

2. Because you love its history
I have heard of an example where a designer chooses to build a font designed for the same year with the customer's organization. This will surely put on the halo of the fate of the times for the design, which is hard for customers to resist. Although I am not so lucky so far, I still tried to select fonts that can evoke memories. For example, I have never liked Aldo novarese eurostyle, but I still love it when I design a book about Eero Saarinen: the reason is that they all clearly demonstrated the post-war optimism in the 1950 s.

3. Because you like its name
One time I saw a project in a student's portfolio and re-designed a brand image that was not flattering to Tiffany jewelry. I especially do not like the font used by design. When I politely ask What font this is, "Oh !" The student was excited and replied, "This is the best part. This font is Tiffany !" In addition, Bruce Mau and David Rockwell created the spectacle book, whose font is Rockwell. I think this is really interesting.

4. Because its designers
One time, one of my design project customers included some amazing architects. I chose Cheltenham for their project, a little fancy font that not only works perfectly with the project, but also a rare Architect (Bertram Goodhue) I know) designed font. Recently, I was designing a publishing project for a female school. I used a female designer designed to name the Zuzana licko's mrs. Eaves font Based on the female name. In these two examples, even if my customers know that the public knows nothing about the story behind these fonts, they can still get some consolation from them.

5. Because it is already there
Sometimes a font is already there when you appear, and it is really unfriendly to discard it. "We use Baskerville and Univers 65 in data design, but there is no problem if you want to make any changes ." Really? Why? This is like some amateur chefs in many cooking programs. The program gave him a piece of radish, a pack of flour, a leg of goat, and some maple juice to cook a dish. What can we do? In fact, sometimes the real pleasure is to do something you have never done before.

6. Because they force you
And sometimes some fonts that you have never used before. "We use the ITC ERAs in data design ." "Can I make some replacement suggestions ?" "No ." When there is no creative space, you may be able to try the concave and convex printing method.

7. Because it reminds you of something
Whenever I want to make a word look straightforward, sophisticated, and conversational, I usually consider Futura, mixed case. Why? It's not because his designer Paul Renner is straightforward, exquisite, and conversational, although he may have been. It is because 45 years ago, Helmut krone used Futura In the Dane bernach Volkswagen advertisement and continued until today. But here is a warning: it reminds you of some things and may remind others of others.

8. Because it is beautiful
Cyrus Highsmith's novia was launched in the commercial market. His initial design was the title Font designed for the Martha Stewart Weddings magazine. This word cannot be defended, at least for me.

9. Because it is ugly
About 10 years ago, I was invited to design a logo for New York Magazine. At that time, Milton Glaser had designed a logo Based on Bookman swash italic. This font seems incredibly ugly and outdated to me. His logo replaces the logo designed by Peter Palazzo Based on the Caslon italic. I suggest we go back to the early Caslon body and clearly remember what I said at that time. "Bookman swash italic will be ugly forever ." But a few days ago, I saw something in my office that caught my eye. It was Bookman swash italic, and it looked great. Ugly, but great.

10. It is dull.
Tibor Kalman is attracted by dull fonts. "No, this font is too clever. This font is too interesting ." When I showed the font he chose for his work, he always said that only the dull font would suit his mind. The final choice is trade Gothic.

11. Because it is very special
Like fashion design, there is nothing better than tailored to the customer. I was commissioned by Jonathan hoefler and Tobias frere-Jones and Joe finocchiaro to design custom fonts. Now I am working on this project with Matthew Carter and Chester. This project is definitely the ultimate temptation, but it must be worth exceeding the limit.

12. Because of your faith
Sometimes I want to think that Massimo vignelli may use too many fonts, not too few. A true religious view is a world, a font. The use of Helvetica by designers of experimental Jetset is an example. My partner Abbott Miller was once called "Scala years" for some time, and he used almost only this font at that time. I think that when appropriate, I may make such determination to myself.

13. You cannot refuse
Princeton architecture press recently published a collection of articles I wrote first in design observer. I want to make it feel like a real book-No pictures-so I asked Abbott to design it. He suggested that we set different fonts for each of the 79 articles. I like this idea, but I'm not sure what he wants to do. He asked: "What should I do if I hate ITC Garamond ?" I asked, "Can we use ITC Garamond ?" He looked at me like a madman: "Of course !"

By the way, this book to be published will be very beautiful, and it will not be dequetry because of too many fonts.