Typefaces, often called fonts these days, abound. When I studied briefly with David Berlow (Font Bureau, Boston), he had a few stories to tell. He said something like this. He said, “I thought of it like selling arms. Type can be used for good or for bad, and I don’t care.” Then, from my memory, he wavered and said that he had started to care. It mattered when he saw his designs used poorly. He said, “Suppose you have a farm. If you say, I like this sheep because she makes the best wool, then that’s professional. If you say, I like this one because she’s pretty…” It reminded me of Emil Ruder’s declaration in his book Typography, “Type has one business before it and that is to communicate.” (Basel School of Design). There we run into questions of what it means to communicate.

We could dress it up with fancy words like ‘semiotics’ and the latest post-this-and-that. That’s an old academic trick. Here is a simple claim: typefaces communicate more than the underlying idea of the words. Just as in oral language, there are connotations. We know this from common experience. Typography can feel techno, can feel pop, can feel esteemed, with infinite variation. And that’s just it. Aren’t there enough typefaces? Berlow addressed this, too: “You could say there are enough shirts, and yet people keep designing them.” Let’s explore why.