Wilkins’s Real Character
"Building each signifier out of a natural description of the thing it signifies."
Typography
A series on 25 favorite typefaces, cross-posted from our sister site HILOBROW.
Comic Sans
"Comic Sans joins the ranks of Nickelback and Hot Pockets as a thing you’re only allowed to like in a so-bad-it’s-good way."
Shatter
"It attacked the Establishment’s preferred information typography style with a sharp edge."
Chinese Shipping Box
"For those of us who crave the off-version of your basic commercial reality, this is all just great."
Chicago
"The secret was in the spaces between the letters."
Scream Queen
"Flexible enough to evoke both Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth and The Exorcist."
Diploma Regular
"My tattoo indelibly links me to a nine-hundred-year-old scholastic tradition of writing and reading."
Electronic Display
"Getting early electro-mechanical systems to dynamically display changeable text was a pain in the ass."
Kumon Worksheet
"The typography drives me crazy."
Trade Gothic Bold Condensed No. 20
"Want to say something? Reach for Trade No. 20."
Savannah Sign
"He ought to be a celebrated figure, for contributing brilliantly to Savannah’s visual charisma."
Jenson’s Roman
"They were designing a means of expression intended to last a thousand years."
Futura
"Futura represents the rational utopia of progress, where everything not only works well, but looks good doing it."
Faux Devanagari
"The US is country of immigrants, which means that we are awash in repurposed culture, little of which is seen as appropriation."