Cited from the source referenced above: … aside from a very important example—the 36-point Helvetica Bold lead type designed by Max Miedinger in 1956—previously there were no typefaces in MoMA’s collection.

I’d like to congratulate MoMA upon the discovery of type being a matter of design art.

How can a museum "acquire" something with no capital value?
This is listism, and not much different from the commentary of anyone who has written an opinionated type history, from Updike to Blackwell.

The return on investment—the value added—from which the museum profits in admission fees and collateral revenue (catalog sales &c.), is produced by the curators.

I am in two minds of how good this is for type designers. On the one hand, being propped by MoMA enhances our status, but on the other it devalues our work. Let's face it, "acquiring" typefaces is a cheap way to put on a show. I don't see any House Industries fonts on the list — their licence (for, say, the brilliantly Postmodern Chalet, a suitably modern arty type) may have been a bit prohibitive, perhaps gearing fees to gallery admissions!

It also undermines the position of the museum, because it opens the door for virtual curation. Now anyone can be a curator.

Fontshop's Best of 2009 was "hand picked" -- will its Best of 2010 be "curated"? I hope so!

FontShop has already been using the word "curated" to describe their selection of fonts on offer (e.g. "Special collections called "FontLists" are curated by FontShop experts...").
And their Best of 2010 came out last month already. You didn't notice?-- your fonts are on it!

As for the larger questions about what "acquisition" means, I note that kottke.org posted a few words from Jonathan Hoefler under the promising title "MoMA acquires digital typefaces; what does that mean? But I'm not sure I see Hoefler's answer to that question there, and instead he raises still more puzzling questions.

I am very glad to se MoMA acquiring type for its collection. The Smithsonian acquired Archie Bunker's chair some years ago as a piece of history in the entertainment industry, why not some pieces of type to MoMA for communication design history?

ROCK ON, MoMA!!!

What does it mean for one museum (MOMA) to "acquire" the digital typeface that is at the very heart of the unique identity of another (the Walker Art Center), I wonder?

Should we expect the Walker to counter with an acquisition of Carter's Franklin Gothic reworking?

I suppose that after they "acquired" the @ sign (just...the character, for which they credit Ray Tomlinson for the "act of design" in recontextualizing it when he invented e-mail), the licensing of actual typefaces looks soundly concrete in comparison.

For Verdana the acquisition took the form of a letter which we reviewed (negotiated some edits) and then signed, a kind of license, but one with specific terms to reflect the rights the museum needed to allow for the ongoing study and exhibition of the work.

Walker is identified as a gift from Carter & Cone, which suggests Matthew has the right to donate it. http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=139311

Thanks for the list Craig, now I remember!

"MoMA has either purchased them or obtained them as gifts, but the copyright and the right to sell a user’s license remain with the original manufacturer."

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Great and sad in the same time.

Type would be even better with people in the street, in the real life, than in a museum as intangible art.

Is it just me, or does the collection have quite a strong 90s feel to it? I see several faces by Emigre, FF Blur, Beowulf, Mason...
And Matthew Carter is well represented as well, although I would say this is justified. But it seems to concentrate very much on american type design (Carter, HTF, FB), rather than offering a worldwide perspective. Where's Frutiger, Peter Bil'ak, Gerard Unger, Lucas de Groot, Hermann Zapf, Hannes von Döhren, Akira Kobayashi to name but a few?

The curator's own understanding of "acquisition" has been layed out in an article by Steven Heller. It is the old "it's art if you frame it" idea expressed in business language.

Mr Daniels, thank you for describing the procedure.

I once thought that a curator was one that ran a smokehouse to cure food.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not necessarily unhappy that type design is receiving additional recognition as a creative venture.

But I’m trying to wrap my head around these new definitions of “acquisition” and just what a museum is these days.

From the Heller article linked above, quoting curator Paola Antonelli: “. . . it sets curators free to tag the world and acknowledge things that 'cannot be had,' because they are too big (buildings, Boeing 747’s, satellites), or because they are in the air and belong to everybody and to no one, . . . as art objects befitting MoMA’s collection. There is no need to physically possess. After this, the world is ours to tag and collect.”

I suppose perhaps next MOMA’s Department of Architecture and Design might decide to “acquire” Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao?

No selection of typefaces could ever claim to be universally valid.
And I’m probably expecting too much of a type-historical component in such a listing.

But this is darn 1990s-heavy. To me, typefaces like Blur or Template Gothic represent rather the exploration of new technical possibilities and very temporary shapes without adding to, let alone creating something of ‘revisionary’ value (is that even a word?).
I haven’t seen these two particular designs for a while and every time I see them, it’s either a design from the 90s or something that unfortunately looks like from the 90s.

So many type-historically important typefaces are missing, wouldn’t even know where to start.
And what about Georg Salden’s GST Polo?
http://www.typemanufactur.com/eng/fonts/polo/styles.html
http://www.typemanufactur.com/eng/fonts/polo/designinfo.html
Designed from 1972-1976, it anticipated Meta and everything that has seemingly been anticipated by Meta.

@ Nick Shinn:
You might consider donating one of your typefaces, apparently that’s how some typefaces got into this ‘selection’.
[I’d never doubt that Retina is a great design – but isn’t it still far from being new or outstanding, even (or even more) in 1999?]

Kent, I did not read your comment that way. The designers deserve it, no question.

At the same time the selection and reasons provided for each typeface's inclusion suggest that it is less the typefaces themselves which have been added to the collection, but that they rather serve to represent technological and/or esthetical milestones. Unfortunately the choice exhibits a pretty narrow view on type, but is quite telling about what type is to "graphic design critics, designers, and historians" (mentioned as advisors in the article): design critics remembered FUSE, designers know the NY type foundry, and Mr Carter thanks to previous recognition, etc. Plus something along the line, oh, wait, I know yet another Carter and/or Hoefler we could include too. :)

Jörg Gustafs, yes.

You might consider donating one of your typefaces

Sure, they can have them all.
I'll get my legal department to draw up an appropriate EULA enshrining them for eternity!

Re the set of fonts and omissions. I’m certain that there are typefaces they wanted to acquire, but for whatever reason they couldn’t (they asked me for contact details related to a company that isn’t represented on the list). I’m sure the collection will grow.

I should mention this is a step forward from the @ acquisition, for which I criticized MoMA for not respecting the true author of the @'s present significance—Ray Tomlinson, and for not acknowledging the type designers of the @ samples MoMA showed.

Now they are crediting type designers, which is very cool, despite the dubious nature of the "acquisition" concept.

Sometimes you take a first step by sampling a taste of something. You may, if pleased, go back for more. Eventually, you may trot out to the box store and get a truckload. "One small step for MoMA, one..."

It is typical that a museum would wait at least 20 years before determining that something has made a significant enough impact to be worthy of inclusion. The 90s were the "Burst" time for digital type, why not start there?

What really stands out to me is the failure on the part of MoMA to research attributions. MoMA attributes Gotham to “Jonathan Hoefler (American, born 1970) and Tobias Frere-Jones (American, born 1970)”. But if one goes back to the Gotham specimen in the 2002 book “Language, Culture, Type” the design was attributed to “Tobias Frere-Jones, Jesse M. Ragan”. Jesse is no longer at H&FJ and is no longer credited for the Gotham design by H&FJ, but if MoMA is going to show Gotham in their collection they should explain why their attribution does not match the earlier attribution. Hopefully MoMA is not just letting type vendors write their own attributions and accepting that as gospel.

This selection is, as any kind of our statements as human beings, a purely subjective definition of truth. And as any definition of truth, it is a means of power. As in similar selective typeface listings, the people behind it have their own POV and interests. Meh.

Of course one could question if their definition couldn’t be more representative (i. e. borne by more people who deal with type / type history).
But who’s to define whether someone is capable of defining a more representative selection or not?
;)

JoergGustafs:
I share your sentiments towards said two 90s typefaces. For similar reasons, I wouldn’t expect a Jugendstil typeface in such a selection, from a present-day perspective (the different socio-cultural background being another one of the many parameters to define our perspective, of course!!).
/side note:
Your mention of Salden is interesting since it probably shows the power of the authority to define, the power of sovereignty of definition.
Then again, on a personal note, it was Meta and its popularity that made me take notice of GST Polo.
And I know that this is true for most of the younger designers who heard about Salden / Polo.
Wouldn’t this make Meta some kind of predecessor of Polo?

dezcom:
I totally agree with you on that «20-years significance filter» (sorry if I’m putting you words in your mouth). But wouldn’t this reveal, as mentioned earlier, that said 2 typefaces have NOT (or not yet) passed that filter?

>I totally agree with you on that «20-years significance filter»

Related - a month long exhibition of a font that's barely dry :-)

http://www.muktware.com/n/27/2011/713

@ aarhaus: You’re right, I also found out about Polo through Meta or at least long after heaving heard of Meta.
I mentioned it because Meta is featured as well as Retina, and these two, being about 20 years younger than Polo, add nothing strikingly new or better IMHO. Polo has a small size version with ink traps.
(Although, I realise that Retina was probably rather inspired by Bell Centennial – which is also featured – and Frutiger and/or Myriad)
Again, I’m not trying to ‘sully’ the reputation of any of these fonts (which I am not capable of anyway) but I’d wish that selections like this would take the opportunity to credit some of the lesser known pioneers. Instead, the people who do these selections most often rely on the established ‘authorities’, as you put it.

@ Sii: From the article you linked to I can see this exhibition is just part of a SouthAfrican-European plot to dethrone a major US company ;-P

"One small step for MoMA, one..."

I thought it was the other way round –?

>@ Sii: From the article you linked to I can see this exhibition is just part of a SouthAfrican-European plot to dethrone a major US company ;-P

Yikes! I'll warn my friends. Are they targeting Google or Apple? ;-)

Could well be, Andreas.

Nope, @Andreas. "... one GIANT leap for museum-kind." :-þ

^ Gotta love this Icelandic emoticon …

;^þ)

Yup!

For the record, my above comment was not a complaint about how H&FJ handles attribution for their work. My complaint is with MoMA for not having noted the change in the description of Gotham as their curators would if it were a painting that had been alternately attributed to Georges Braques and his assistant, then to Georges Braques, and then to Picasso and Braques.

Don't get me wrong, I love seeing type design getting exposure - but to me this smells funny on many levels.

hhp