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The Characters of Our Content

The letters you are reading are all digital. By Dan Pulcrano Awash in a digital tsunami of high tech typography, we're splashed daily with an information soup of distressed, illustrated, retro and grunge typefaces morphed into an infinite array of mutable shapes, weights, styles and ethnic flavors. Amidst this proliferation, it is sometimes easy to forget that some of the most compelling design has been created with a single, thoughtfully used classic typeface. Railing against the ornamented letter forms of the early 20th century, modernist Jan Tschichold championed a form-follows-function design ethic characterized by "asymmetry, the positive deployment of empty space, the meaningful use of color, the meaningful exploitation of contrast and a corresponding lack of interest in visual balance." (Robin Kinross, Jan Tschichold: The New Typography, University of California Press, 1995.) Tschichold derided the typographical nationalism exemplified in the popularity of medieval black Teutonic alphabets and advocated the use of clean, universal typefaces. (He would have likewise been disgusted by typographical demography: Gen X typefaces.) For suggesting such internationalist notions, Tschichold was taken into protective custody, along with other "cultural Bolsheviks" by Nazi authorities in 1933. Though today's type designers face less daunting risks, the business remains a political art. Freed from the Bauhaus and the limits of predecessor technologies, postmodern typography has embraced currents of deconstruction and revival, along with contemporary gimmickry and various forms of typographical abuse. The battle between functional modernism and decorative classicism is played out in the pages of this newspaper. Publication designer Roger Black's 1988 remake of Metro employed what Black describes as the "yin and yang"--heavy black sans serif headlines contrasted with delicate serif classic faces. A custom version of swash Garamond Light was created by David Berlow's Font Bureau and is used in the large decorative headings on sections such as MetroPolis and MetroGuide. Another custom font commissioned by Metro is a condensed version of Erik Spiekermann's Meta, customized by Conor Mangat of San Francisco's MetaDesign San Francisco. The typeface is designed to save paper while promoting readability and will anchor the redesigned Metro Classifieds, to be unveiled later this month. In contrast to the Meta's sleek functionalism and the classicism of Font Bureau fonts used throughout this newspaper are contemporary faces designed by small foundries such as Plazm, T-29, Emigre and Letterror. The LiveWire and Metroactive online services are based on the Kosmik typeface designed by Erik van Blokland, which uses technology to mimic the irregularity of hand lettering. Other Letterror designs mimic dirty typewriters, Dynamo label makers, handwriting and ink clogged lead type. The use of high technology to mimic low tech pre-digital type is a consistent Letterror prank that brings the paradox of the digital age into focus. Rather than enforcing uniformity, the information age brings with it a dizzying array of possibilities and options, a retreat to the cozy metaphors of pre-digital life and--rather than the order and universal commonality that Tschichold and the Bauhausian "Bolsheviks" sought--anarchistic devolution. [ Metro | Metroactive Central | Archives ]