![]() What sparked it? In Strizver’s case she seems fixated on the differences between typewriting and typesetting (aka typography). The “type crime” trend apparently began with Lupton and Strizver over a decade ago. Only when they are used in moderation can the element of surprise and fancy be maintained.” There is no shrill warning, only reasonable advice. In An Introduction to Typography, Simon writes, “Any display incorporating swash letters should be kept within the bounds of reticence their too-frequent use becomes tiresome. Similarly, the proponents of classical typography (the “Crystal Goblet” approach), such as Beatrice Warde, Stanley Morison and Oliver Simon, rarely consider the nitty-gritty of typography and thus don’t inveigh against “type crimes.” What is forbidden is implied by what is promulgated as not only right but obvious and inevitable. In the writings of Emil Ruder, Josef Müller-Brockmann and Karl Gerstner, one can search in vain for a list of proscribed typographic acts. The absolutism of Swiss typography is more oracular than punitive: Sans serif is the typeface of our time or, the flush left, rag right setting is natural. Pages from Rhyme and Reason: A Typographic Novel Ginger memorably appropriated Goudy’s phrase as the basis for the title of their popular book on typography, Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works.īut despite the finger-wagging title, their text is blissfully free of “don’ts.” Which is what one would expect from Spiekermann, author of Rhyme and Reason: A Typographic Novel, whose mantra is “Everything interacts.” Like Tschichold, he is concerned with the details of typography only as a means of achieving an optimal reading experience. Goudy several decades earlier as, “Anyone who would letterspace lowercase letters would steal sheep.” Erik Spiekermann and E.M. Tschichold’s stricture against letterspacing lowercase letters-a peculiarly German practice rooted in the deficiencies of blackletter types-was more colorfully expressed by the American type designer Frederic W. ![]() Tschichold’s flexibility is not that surprising once one recalls that the basis of his famous fight with Max Bill in 1946 was over Bill’s Modernist idea that there was only one true path to typographic grace. ![]() That experience allows one to ignore absolute statements about typography if they don’t fit the circumstances. Thus, he proclaims, “Personal typography is defective typography.”įor Tschichold, “perfect typography” depends on harmony between all of its elements and is only achieved through long experience. “Paragraphs without indent … are a bad habit and should be eliminated.”“It should be a rule that lowercase is never and under no circumstances to be letterspaced.”Īlthough Tschichold’s essays often focus on typographic details such as widows and orphans, the thrust of his texts is about the responsibility of the typographer/book designer as a guardian of knowledge, someone entrusted with aiding its transmission from writer to reader, from one moment in time to another. But upon rereading the book, I found no dire warnings against “type crimes” and only a few explicit commandments: When and why did this obsession with “type crimes” arise? In trying to answer this question, I first assumed its roots resided in the rigid pronouncements of a German or Swiss typographer, specifically Jan Tschichold, who, as Robert Bringhurst pointed out, “loved categorical statements and absolute rules.” After all, the English translation of a collection of Tschichold’s writings on typography and book design is entitled The Form of the Book: Essays on the Morality of Good Design. One, the grammatically awkward “Most Wanted Type Crimes,” seems to be unintentionally encouraging this rampage of typographic depravity. ![]() The website for Thinking With Type, Ellen Lupton’s popular book on typography, contains a section entitled “Type Crimes.” Ilene Strizver, author of Type Rules!, posts the “ Top Ten Type Crimes” on while Laure Joumier lists the “ Top Ten Type Crimes for Science and Mathematics” on the blog “The Incentive.” Amber Alerts are issued by other bloggers, many taking their cues from Lupton and Strizver. More and more I keep encountering the chilling phrase “type crime.” At a time when crime has been decreasing in American cities, it seems to be on the upswing in the world of design. There seems to be an epidemic of lawlessness in the world of typography. ![]()
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