Types Best Remembered/Types Best Forgotten

"This is another really quirky book, originally published in America, where this guy called Robert Norton badgered all his friends into sending him anecdotes about types they love and types they loathe, so it’s a truly subjective thing. Now everyone would pick Comic Sans – traditionally known as the most loathed typeface in the world, and used all over the place in the wrong way. Google it. It’s the worst thing. It was designed originally for Microsoft, for a computer program, but then they put it into Works and Word. It’s a fantastic typeface for party invitations and for kids to use. It’s good for dyslexics too. What it isn’t so good at is when it appears on the side of ambulances because it’s a jokey, jaunty thing. People who don’t like type tend to use it. I don’t mind Comic Sans if it’s used correctly. In my book I’ve got a list of eight that I don’t like and heading that list is the 2012 London Olympic font, this ghastly jagged thing. It looks as though… I have to be careful what I say because the person who designed it is a really nice guy, and he’s done other really good work. But this one is like having needles put into your eyes. I know the Olympics isn’t all about athletics. But it is all about speed and beauty and elegance and this is everything but. There are lots of them like that. In this book you have to turn the book over and start from the other side for Types Best Forgotten. There’s one space age one called One Up, a ghastly 60s thing, and the guy who designed that, Leo Maggs, talks about how he wished he hadn’t designed it. ‘Way back in the swinging 60s,’ he says, ‘when my youthful soul was consumed with enthusiasm, if not naked ambition, I was surprised and delighted to have my first typeface, Westminster, accepted by Robert Norton. I produced several further designs, most of which were properly strangled at birth. One Up unfortunately survived… Looking at it now I feel much as I imagine a mature film star must feel when, 30 years after the event, she comes across photographs of herself as a struggling starlet revealing all for the readers of popular girly magazines, and I wish I hadn’t done it.’ The other interesting thing about this book is that Helvetica, one of the most widely used typefaces in the world, used by everyone from BMW to American Apparel and the New York Subway, is both one of the types best remembered and one of the types best forgotten! People weigh in saying why they love it and why they hate it. Obviously, when one talks about typefaces it’s often a subjective thing. There’s one 60s one that I love, it was on the cover of David Bowie’s Hunky Dory album. Oh, not a Bowie fan? This typeface is called Zipper. I really like it. The thing is that typefaces have associations, like childhood confectionery. If you don’t like David Bowie and you see that typeface you will then hate that typeface. It’s all about context."