Action for typography

After months of careful research, kerning and tweaking, I gave a stroke to my friend and typographer when I proudly announced my next logo would be set in ITC Garamond Narrow. Thanks to him, it is perfectly kerned ITC Garamond Narrow but ITC Garamond Narrow it remains.

There are too many reasons for this choice to go into specifics here. Suffice to say that makes sense for the brand, will open up many a design opportunity that our previous typefaces did not and, as an added bonus, should be pleasantly retro. Plus, you know, it's my brand, I'm allowed the occasional tantrum when no clients get hurt. ITC Garamond evokes a world of "my life, to go," Seinfeld re-runs in the background and a time when technology was still full of promises.

That typeface hasn't been used by Apple for a good many years now either – even though one could argue that they never used that particular one, since their version of Garamond was custom – so we can now use it without being asked why we channel Steve.

I am surprised, however, by the strong reactions this typeface can elicit. Starting with this most entertaining post from Design Observer, down to the most specialized forums, one thing is clear: there is no acceptable use for ITC Garamond, like there is none for Arial, Chicago, Comic Sans, Cooper Black, Curlz, Hans, Impact, Papyrus, Times New Roman, Verdana and many others.

I cannot say that I like seeing my choices bashed by the whole wide world before I even make them public, so I started on a quest to understand why that particular typeface was maligned by such a great many people. I still remain unconvinced by the explanations on its excessive x-height and 70's design but I did learn something interesting along the way.

The more I read, the more I was surprised by the acrimony of many designers, re-enforced, of course, by the omnipresence of the "despicable few" across logos, signage, books even! These terrible, terrible typefaces are everywhere to be found and software in general even seems to go out of its way to recommend them.

I do not know the man personally but Joe Clark's work on the use and misuse of type in the Toronto subway is admirable and enlightening.

I also fear it is very representative of the state of affairs in a great many corporations, where clerks open their favorite page layout program – Microsoft Word – and trust a multi-billion dollar corporation with more designers on call than they will ever meet in their entire life to make reasonably good choices for them. The result? Arial Black.

Apple fares better in that most Apple software has a certain understanding of kerning, leading and ligatures but still ships all the offenders on every system – ironically to the relief of web designers who need these typefaces to work –, including what I feel is quickly becoming the Comic Sans of the century, Zapfino.

Faced with this chaos, may I propose a course of action?

Web designers got fed up with Internet Explorer 6 and went en masse behind Firefox. Arguably, Firefox is not the best browser ever and it has its flaws but it had the merits of creating a strong, standard platform, that could oppose the then uncontested winner. We developed tests – I say "we" because I am a bit of a web person myself –, went campaigning in companies and generally made a pain of ourselves until the message got across loud and clear: it is not because table layouts worked that they should be used.

Typographers, so far, do not seem to have initiated similar action. I feel the time is ripe, especially now that font formats have been standardized across major platforms. We can now form a standard initiative, educate users through the publication of readable standards, propose free font packs for download and work with OS vendors towards shipping a "good" set of typefaces. JavaScript could be used to sniff out Comic Sans and deny access to major web sites if that font is loaded on the system! (OK, kidding on that last one.)

Certainly, typefaces are expensive – even ITC Garamond Narrow costs 230 euros these days and in the world of design, that is a bargain – but so is developing a web browser. Certainly, they cannot be checked as easily as HTML markup but we have a sound enough understanding of many text formats to programatically detect red text on purple backgrounds and pop up a warning. (Call it accessibility if you can't legally call it good taste.) The idea of a typographic validator for text documents is less of a fantasy than it was before.

Software could be tested for its management of fonts, ligatures and kerning. I don't quite know how one could create an equivalent of the Acid test in that area but surely something can be done. (What do you mean I am speculating idly?)

Standard and non-atrocious does not mean spiritual, of course. There are many standards-compliant web sites these days that are still powered by atrociously messy code. Messy, but standard and it is a great step over their previous iterations that, more often than not, were messy and proprietary. I am not suggesting we can transform Joe Subway into a typographer, nor am I pretending to be one. But if the use of Comic Sans is such a violation of basic human dignity, we have the means to discourage it and, in the process, normalize documents and signage a bit.

If typography is so important – and I believe it is –, then let us take action and help the end user make good decisions. I promise I will then replace my ITC Garamond with Chronicle and P22 Underground – and we'll keep on kerning all our logos by hand, because nothing replaces the magic touch of a classically trained typographer.