Typophile

Guttenburg versus Grunge

studio-k

Someone once remarked that the craft of typography has been going downhill ever since it was created. The most recent threat seems to come from grafitti - which has now become mainstream rather than marginal - and grunge, hand scribbled fonts that some designers seem to prize for their spontaneity. When did the rot set in? With the introduction of Comic Sans or that potato cut font used by Sainsburys (the UK grocery chain) to give itself street credibility? Does it matter? Does anyone care? As a type designer who sprends hundreds of hours meticulously honing my productions (and hundreds more meticulously kerning them!) I'm beginning to lose faith in the integrity of the profession. Is there anyone out there with me on this?

Hrant H Papazian

Don't you think we've actually been on an upward trend for some years now? I'm talking about quality, not money...

hhp

Reynir Heiðberg...

The older one is, the worse things are now than in one's youth. This sentiment was expressed in writing about three thousand years ago.

Nick Shinn

What Hrant said.
This is a golden age of type design.
Grunge is passé.
As the bellwether, look at Myfonts best sellers.
Five years ago, there were far more grunge and scripts.
Veer, which specialized in grunge and scripts, is reconsolidating under the aegis of Corbis.

aluminum

I think you're a decade or two late for the grunge rant.

PublishingMojo

I, too, experience an involuntary twinge of discomfort when I see work that doesn't display imagination, skill, and care. Alas, I also experience this twinge when I see Johannes Gutenberg's name spelled with two t's.

Captured from commoncrawl.org on 27 Apr 2015. original URL