Monday, November 10, 2008

Are you there Fonts? It's me, The Mayor

It has been brought to my attention, via several aggressive letters and threatening phone calls, that I, The Mayor, know nothing about Typography. I will let you sit on that for a second.
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Sadly, I must agree with you; I really couldn't typeset my way out of a paper bag. Now might be a good time to clear up that I was adopted into the Villatype family for my ability to make jokes, and not for my very thin knowledge of graphic design (surprise, right?)

So after a brief tutorial on typography, found type, graphic design, and letters (yes, I said letters. Did you know there are 26 now? Neat!) I have learned the following:

FACT! Graphic Designers like to keep a wardrobe of clothing in the following colours: black. This has lead me to believe that you have also at one point in time purchased the 2 gallon bottle of Woolite Dark.

FACT! Instead of Christmas, Hanukah, or Festivus, you celebrate the annual holiday of Typecon. The 5-day-long event includes workshops, classes, lectures, but no feats of strength. I hear that you also partake in the Airing of Grievances, but it usually happens on the 5th night after several glasses of wine.

FACT! If you saw Massimo Vignelli on the street and he was about to step in a puddle, you would lay down your coat for him to step on. Coats over puddles may not be your thing, so you can choose to react in a different way, but it would probably be just as chivalrous.

FACT! If you wrote letters to Santa, you might ask for a letter scarf or a kerning hoodie. I would ask for a Nintendo Wii, but that's just because mine got stolen when my apartment was broken into. Actually, I might ask for a padlock. Or an apartment in a better neighborhood.

FACT! spd.org is not an online resource for the illegal (and, natch, inexpensive) purchase of Methamphetamine.

FACT! David Carson does not play Horatio Caine on CSI: Miami.

FACT! You have your own little Type-ish Wikipedia. I browsed around it a bit and noticed one major difference between TypoWiki and Wikipedia: little to no information on The Jonas Brothers. Jesus, TypoWiki, catch up!!

So there you have it! I now know 400% more about graphic design and type than I did last week. I am no where near an expert (clearly) but I can easily identify that CMYK refers to colours, and not washing instructions. I know how impressive that must be to you all, but they are some big steps in remembering for me (I have the memory of a goldfish). But I want to get better! Please send all your helpful hints, interesting type info, and graphic design knowledge to mayor.villatype@gmail.com, and help me help you. Like, you help me with knowing more, and I help you with jokes. I know, it was a terrible joke - a Jerry Maguire quote long past its expiration date? What was I thinking? Anyways, see you next week!

3 comments:

Jack Gordon said...

Mayor, do you take requests? Would you please opine on the Antiqua-Fraktur dispute in a future column?

Admin said...

I will try, but I don't know what the e-ef-ef it is. Looks like I have some research for this week's piece.

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