July 26th, 2005
Typography — a dying art form?
I received an email from today from this guy called Larry. He asked me if I thought typography is a dying art form. I’m sure he won’t mind, but I thought it would be quite nice to get the opinions of other people as well to form a more general consensus.
So, I’ll kick it off.
I don’t think typography is a dying art form, I think it’s an evolving art form. In fact I’m not sure typography is an art form at all. It can be I guess, but in it’s purest sense it’s just part of the solution, part of graphic design.
As a member of the ISTD I still see a lot of enthusiasm and passion for typography. In some sectors of the industry, good typography is on the incline rather than the decline. One of these sectors is web design. If you compare where we were just a few years ago and where we are now, generally things have improved. That’s not to say there’s bad typography — there always will be — you have to have the ying with the yang right?
Anyway, in a nutshell. No I don’t think it’s dying, it’s just changing and as we all know, some people don’t like change. Some important things are being lost with the evolution, but that’s just part of evolving — getting rid of dead wood. I don’t think it’s an artform generally, although it can be in some circumstances.
What are your thoughts?
No, I don’t think typography is dying. And this is a web developer talking!
Typography on the web has had a tough time. No other element of design suffered in the ‘cross-over’ to the web as much as typography did. Let’s face it — up until CSS became a viable technology we couldn’t do anything more than choose a typeface and font size. No wonder typography has become less of a focus for designers that have moved to the web.
It is making a comeback however — there is more interest in it since CSS became completely mainstream, and CSS 3 should build on this even more.
Driving around my home town I’m seeing lots of shop signs and banners written in core Microsoft office fonts like Tahoma or Trebuchet MS.
So to that extent, there is less of an understanding of typography as people are clearly doing a lot of this work for themselves.
Typography will never die. Bad typography stands out almost as well as good typography, for very different reasons. It’s one art whose absence itself is a constant reminder of its importance.
The other day, I saw some text on TV in Comic Sans. Over here in Sri Lanka, the only thing harder to find than good designers are design schools.
Agree I think alot of people are trying to make sure their typography is looking better.
If you go to just about any design related blog there is a good chance you will find a type topic with tons of links posted to / about great typography art.
The art can never die as long as we read.
I was never aware of Typography as an art form until I got into standards-based design. I do agree, and have to note that poor quality signage is possibly the result of the post-DTP generation. “Why pay a designer when you can knock up signage in Microsoft Word?????”
I would expect that any notion of the “death of typography” discussed within the web design community would be reacting directly to the typographic lull of the early years of the web, brought about by technological limitations, the developer-cum-designer explosion, and the growing number of designers who came of creative age in the digital realm. As Mark pointed out, we’re currently in a much better place than we were even a few years ago, which, in my opinion, is strong evidence for typography’s continued vitality as an art form and indispensible communicative entity.
I agree with the flow of discussion. I think typography is still on the rebound from the initial shock advent of the personal computer, but it’s certainly not on its way out. There is definitely something to be said that Mayor Bloomberg would declare an official “Type Week” in Manhattan.
Typography is not a dying art form. Why should it die? Did we stop using letters? Sentences? Paragraphs?
We shouldn’t forget that not everything in this world is made of HTML file.
Another thing we shouldn’t forget is that if we use text (not images) in an HTML page, the user can change the typography we use.
On the web what I miss the most is not typography as an art form, but typography as a craftsmanship. I don’t need every page to be an art object, I don’t think it can be done, I don’t think it should be done. What I’m looking for is design that uses typography to help the user to gain better, more pleasant, access to the content.
Typography will always be there, I don’t think too that it is dying, It has been part of our lives and it will always be. It also acts as a contributing factor for the lifeblood of design, Albeit now in turn we are driving it digitally but we must also recognize that it all came from the primitive metal letterpress typesetting signifying that it is really an art form with historical sense.
As robert bringhurst said, typography has a visual sense and historical sense, we have the visual sense now clearly, but the historical sense part of it is not evident as the visual sense.
Typography in its purest form IS dying due to poor educatonal methods employed within our schools and universities.
How many designers do you know who haven’t a clue the difference between an em dash and a en dash?
I think what you’re referring to there Graham is terminology and, yes, I’d have to agree with you to some extent.
However, typography in it’s purest form isn’t dying. What is dying is the industry in which pure typographers would practice — for example craftsman printers etc.
Typography’s merely changing to reflect an industry which doesn’t really care about em dashes and the time it takes to craft subtle typography.
Anyway, good discussion — keep it coming.
I honestly think signs companies can’t be completely blamed for bad signage. Most sign/print shops just do what their told and what makes them money. If a small mom & pop store just getting started needs a banner at a reasonable price and the only way to meet that cost is by reducing time spent on it, then why not serve the customer? Sure sure it makes for bad “standards” but in all truthfulness, not every business NEEDS or can afford high quality design/typography to be successful.
But if you have the budget it always helps ;)
Matthew: How much does it cost to spend a little longer choosing a more attractive typeface?
Add up the cost per year to hire a real designer, not just someone who can work signmaking software, labor+materials+time really adds up and kills any profit you might make on a fairly simple small banner that doesn’t require good typography…All I’m saying is sometimes production beats perfection in the print/sign industry.
Typography and stonemasonry have this in common (among many other things): they help us function better when done well, they have each developed an art and science, and if that art and that science fail to be continually taught and developed we will be greatly impoverished.
I don’t see many buildings rising up in America to rival the great cathedrals of Europe these days. And I hope the Web has not and does not become merely the equivalent of steel and glass.
Matthew — I think I agree with you to some extent. Anyone who worked in a high pressure design studio has to admit that sometimes quality slips when budget and timescales don’t allow for it. Now who’s fault is it? Well, the design studio for not quoting enough in the first place!
As a web designer, and having to work within the limited amount of default system fonts, I am intrigued by typography. This is not to say I know much about it, quite the contrary. It is because its usage is still somewhat scarce on the web that I find it so fascinating. I think that people who got their design start in printing are really cool, sorta like venerated sages who can lead the way into the future. It’s like you said, typography is not dead, it’s just getting started!
What are people’s thoughts on sIFR for typography on the web?
I think sIFR is pretty cool, when used sparingly. For a really cool sIFR selection, go here…
[url=http://www.fontsmack.com]http://www.fontsmack.com[/url]
Nathan, that is deadly cool! URL is safely tucked into del.icio.us and ready for an idle half hour’s experimentation.
Thanks for the heads up!
As a student at Guru Digital Arts, here in Edmonton, Canada we have been taught a great deal as to Typography and how it can effectively add so much and remain invisible to the general public.
I went to a few lectures at the U of A when Gerry Leonidas was speaking on the future of type, be it print or web based. It was well worth my time and are lessons I will not forget.
Type will continue to evolve, as many of you say. I think we are in a great transitional period when more and more up and coming designers are learning that it is exceptionally important, no matter what the job is.
I love the analogy of typography and masonry!
The grandeur of buildings of old are maybe gone, but I think the usability of new building is much better.
I believe that typography in general seems to be a slowly progressing form of design because of it’s use in today’s mainstream media. One example is some design magazines, they would often use sans-serif typefaces that would be hard to read at 9 to 10pts. The use of type shouldnt be limited to that of digital, we should always remember that type started out with the written character. Alot of designers have forgotten paper in their design. On the web, alot of designers have been using small type. With the emergence of CSS2; the ability to control more important aspects of type, we should not have an excuse not to have better use of the typefaces we choose as a default in any website.
I guess what Im trying to say is that, typography in design is in slow progression because of the lack of information about it. Finding foundries, and other designers who have been using typography seriously in design are really hard to find.
For normal users, alot of people like fancy things. Sometimes even if it isnt legible. All they know that is if it looks good for them, it is ok. That’s where I see typography lost.
I guess typography these days is more or less being confused with the (ab)use of fonts…It seems everybody can do it, and therefore as an artform it changes.
But eventually, as in evolution, this will bring new perspective…and it will live on!
Yes Typography is an Art Form.
It’s not just fonts — that’s not what typography is.
Typography believe it or not takes a great deal of knowledge and yes — skill.
You need to know more than just what the different parts of a font are, but also how a certain font draws out emotion from people. You need to understand standard fonts used in standard industry. Ie. You would use a heavier font for industrial work etc…
Typography is beyond the scope of web design. We cannot yet do the same quality of work in web design as we can in programs like quark. Not in keeping with web standards anyway.