TYPE STYLE

MOBILE, AL | DEC 2017

Publishers Note
As 2017 draws to a close Id like to thank everyone readers, writers, SPECIAL 80s - 90s ISSUE
photographers, advertisers, vendors and the TypeStyle team for an-
other great year. We could not do it without you. Our print deadlines
come fast and furious every 30 days, and we now have digital dead-
lines every day. The year 2017 was a busy one for us. Online, you can
find timely blogs and exclusive, online-only, local articles, photos and
videos on schools, books, safety tips, restaurants and more. And be
sure to connect with us on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Pinterest) for all things Typeworthy every day. This month, we focus
on the years passsed, including the hight of the digital age. Plus, check
out our 2017 Holiday Type Guide, full of design ideas.

Happy New Year and a Merry Christmas!

Best wishes,
Maegan

DOES HISTORY
REPEAT ITSELF?

Magazine3.indd 2-3 12/1/17 12:47 PM

 4DOES HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF? might have avoided the Charles Manson (now Eccentric and novelty
P. Scott Makela problem had he given retitled Mason) seemed fonts call attention to
this character the same to set a new standard for themselves and provide

8
stroke weight as the low- insensitivity. Although an immediate means to
RICARDO, A TALE OF TWO WORLDS ercase l or t. the name "Dead Histo- differentiate messages.
Jasper DeWaard ry" sounds as if Makela And just as the novel-

10
The hue and cry over were making a statement ty font Futura was em-
DECRIMINALIZING TYPOGRAPHY the legibility of new about the hallowed tra- braced as an expression
Paul Shaw fonts must be assessed ditions of typography, he of modernity in 1927,
case by case. insists that that was not so have grunge faces in-

12
CONTENT 1
his intention. His pur- cluding Dead History.
SWISS STYLE
Some are virtually un- pose, he says, was actual-
Callie Budrick readable, while others, ly the opposite; he want- Dead History has been

14
including Dead History, ed "to put some history adopted today as ex-
A TYPEFACE FOR TEACHING stick closely to the basic on the face, "and viewed pressive of the Post-
Elizabeth Stinson structure of each letter the name "as a starting modern 1990s.

16
and maintain sufficient point, or ground zero."
REDISCOVERING AN OLD TYPEFACE character differentiation "Living History" might But forms tire quickly in
to provide adequate legi- better have expressed our over-communicated
Jason Mannix
bility for normal readers. this idea, but it conjures culture, so we can expect

18
Many designers find the up images of museum an unending flow of ty-
ARCHITECTURE AND TYPE names of new fonts an- recreations and lacks the pographic experiments.
Virginia Smith noying; certainly, the bite of the name chosen. A few may have lasting

20
font named after con- Why are designers using interest and elude the ty-
SPORTS TYPOGRAPHY victed mass-murderer Dead History? pographic dustbin.
Sports Dude

ENTS
and provide an immediate means to differentiate messages.

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 In the Victorian era, an But the current on- the typefaces available
array of new industrial slaught of fonts has di- to him. He spliced to-

DOE S
technologies - such as vided the graphic design gether segments of two
mechanical routers to cut community as nothing fonts: the serifed Lino-
display type from blocks before. Many designers, type Centennial, and
of wood, and the me- especially younger ones, VAG, "an architectural/
chanical punch-cutter - exult in the new experi- retail sans serif" with
dramatically reduced the mentation, while others, rounded terminals. Af-
cost of introducing new usually older, decry the ter letter fragments were
typefaces. This resulted new esthetics as bizarre selected, cut, and joined

HISTORY
in a staggering volume and wretched excess. together, Makela tried to
of experimentation and fill in the holes by blend-
innovation. Dead History will do ing the strokes together.
Now, as the millenni- nothing to cool the de- He says there was noth-
um approaches, elec- bate. ing systematic in the de-
tronic technologies are sign process; decisions
once again dramatically This font's first 13 or 14 about where to remove

REPE AT
reducing the cost of de- characters were drawn or leave serifs were com-
signing and manufactur- by P. Scott Makela in pletely intuitive.
ing new type fonts. This 1990 using Fontogra- One's first exposure to
revolution threatens to pher font-design soft- Dead History, as with
exceed the 19th-centu- ware. At the time, Make- many other grunge type
ry's in both the quantity la was designing a poster fonts, is rather jarring.
and peculiarity of new and wanted a face with The structural imbalance
faces. more irregularity than of characters such as M

ITSELF?
This revolution produced an unsurpassed volume of
decorative, eccentric, and novelty type designs.

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 and T (see top of adjoin-
ing column), and the dis-
sonance of refined serifs
juxtaposed against fat
rounded terminals, goes
counter to widely held
notions of well-designed
letters and fonts. But this
is precisely the intent:
Modern design's ethic
of harmony and order
is being challenged by
a generation of design-
ers who grew up on
Pac Man and MTV.
One of the most contro-
versial aspects of Dead
History is its uneven
distribution of weight in
characters and text set-
tings. Typeface design-
ers of the phototype era
(1960s through the early
Eccentric and novelty fonts call attention to themselves and
Magazine3.indd 8-9
1980s) sought to regular-
ize the weight of charac-
ters in a font, creating an
even distribution of val-
ue in lines and columns.
Not so with Dead His-
tory: When heavy and
light strokes are alter-
nately clustered together
in words, the texture and
value of lines and col-
umns become very un-
even indeed. Dead His-
tory actually takes on a
rhythmic movement as
its texture and tone light-
ens and darkens. There
are historical precedents
for this effect; for ex-
ample, William Caslon's
typefaces had a degree
of weight inconsistency
that helps make Caslon
types warm and friendly
to the eye. As in many
Victorian wood type dis-
play faces,
The interplay of positive
and negative shapes in
some of Dead Histo-
ry's letter combinations
hold real interest.
CONTENT 2
One might expect this
face to be virtually il-
legible in text type, but
I've read specimens set
in it without difficulty.
Any interference with
legibility is negligible
in the bold weight, and
becomes a problem only
in the roman weight
CONT-
when the font is smaller
than 10-point. Because
the stroke weight of the
lowercase i is very light,
it becomes too weak in
small text sizes. Makela
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