I have this idea (very warped, I know) that I should be able to discern thirty or so common typefaces at a glance, and spent part of last night trying to figure out the difference between Helvetica and Univers. Subtle...you can tell easily from looking at the lowercase a and the uppercase Q (but how often do you run into uppercase Q?) Univers employs a thicker stroke and is a bit narrower than Helvetica, but if you're looking at a heavy or semi-bold version of the Helvetica, you'd probably be very easily confused. They both have really high x-heights for their size as well.
Nerd alert: chuckling over snarky Amazon user reviews of various books on type and book design. A good example, commenting on Derek Birdsall's Notes on Book Design: "Addditionally, his choice of a typewriter font for the text make the book useless to the reader. Birdsall insists his publisher could not choose a better font--I doubt that. I got one for ya, Birdsall--Garamond. You should try it some time!"
And then I laughed. Because I am a nerd. A big big typeface nerd.
Also, I have conceived a hatred for Bodoni. I hate that typeface. It makes me fear robots and moonmen. It's just too precise.
posted by Reen |link| 0 comments
