Understanding Typeface Meaning

User Experience March 28, 2008

Is understanding the history and meaning of typographic choices necessary? While I do agree that understanding the history behind typography and typefaces to utilize knowledge of its origins and essence in design, it's unfortunately the case (at least it seems to be, to me) that the majority of the world won't understand what you, as the designer, will. This is not to say that you're necessary designing for the broader public, but the group of people in the world who will understand your work at a deep, meaningful level is small in comparison.

As a designer, I think I like to design for the broader audience rather than a small subset. I've often found that when I put a lot of time and effort into something esoteric, it doesn't quite work to my advantage. People tend to focus on the overly obvious. In the case my book cover, no one who looks at it is going to know that each letter has a font that was created chronologically after the font of the letter before it. But they *should* after just a glimpse see that the title is composed of different fonts and that's supposed to mean something.

I'm not saying that just because of that generality that I shouldn't try something deeper, but in my several years of designing, I've noticed that the majority of people just don't see the world the way I do - and it's frustrating. I've been using typography since I was a little kid because my mom is a publisher. Having been passionate about the written word and typography since she was my age, she eventually started a business in our house and I was thrown amidst page layouts, fonts, typewriters and computers, copy machines, paper and stamps. Since then I've had a fascination with creating visual layout designs that depend on typography.

Now, I'm not claiming that my design interest is built on a foundation of understanding that Futura, for example, was created in 1928 and inspired by the streamlined geometric forms that followed the retro style of the 1920s (which is, coincidentally, my favorite decade). And even though I actually am interested in learning about typographical history to that end, I feel like it will only separate myself further from the general public in my design - perhaps to a point where no one will understand my style (and that's what I'm afraid of).

Don't get the impression that I'm "afraid to learn" because that's not what I mean. I'm happy to learn about things - in fact I love learning about things I'm interested in. But when a design is supposed to make sense only because of its background and origins, that's just not enough for me. I've seen plenty of artwork and designs that I really don't like but are supposed to be really important and novel because of their undertones. And I just don't care; it doesn't enhance the design for me. If I don't get it, I don't get it.

When Steve Jobs picked Myriad as Apple's new corporate font in 2002, he didn't pick it because of its "history." In fact, it really has no history - it was created for Adobe in the early 1990s. He picked it because of its humanistic, modern and friendly quality that he probably thought the majority of consumers would gravitate to. Had he picked some older font due to its specific history and meaning at the time of its creation in relation to the world's history and not simply because "it looked nice", it's probable people would not like it as much. And yet, it's well-known that Apple is big on typography, ever since Steve took a random calligraphy course at Reed college before he dropped out.

Of course now we get into this duality of "art for the sake of art" or "art for the sake of functionality." And you could argue either way. I guess in that context, I design for the sake of functionality. If something does what I need it to and it's understandable to many, then I consider it a better choice than something which has so many underlying, hidden meaning that the form outweighs the function.

User Experience design is all about understanding what designs work best for the end user - and that takes into account not only ideas of design and functionality, but psychology as well. I've got to think of how a design will be perceived by your average person before I go any further with deeper meaning.

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