Re: typeface to go with photographs of various kinds

on 7/27/04 11:45 PM, Judy Seigel at jseigel@panix.com wrote:

> You are saying there are some faces you shouldn't use because they're
> inelegant, crude, or not "good." And I'm saying that could still be the
> look I want. Like clumsy printing, or decayed letters, or... who was the
> painter who used to burn holes in the shape of letters in his canvas ?

Well, that's really only true for what I first said about Times. In my most
recent message I took another, more sensible tact: choosing Times to
accompany a visual art presentation is rarely ever going to look like a
choice at all. Of course the possibility for self-conscious parady always
exists. If your work comments upon the newspaper industry or the dull
ubiquity of Microsoft Office then Times could be perfect. I'm sure there are
many oppportunities for parady with Times that haven't occurred to me-- but
outside of obvious parady choosing Times will make it look like you didn't
care. Choosing Times will connect your work to all the drab office
correspondance your audience has ever seen. For me that is a connection I'm
not usually interested in making.

I'm not proposing an inflexible rule. My original suggestion was to "avoid."
(Ok, I did get carried away with my loathing for Times.) In art, rules are
an invitation to all the subversives, perverts, and anarchists. I, for one,
am glad that they always accept (John!). :-)

Use Times to your hearts content! I suspect (and hope) that most of us would
like to do so with some consciousness of what such a choice means.

> Of course (my mother also told me) designers don't actually READ the pages
> they're laying out.

Depends on the designer. I do whenever possible (which is most of the time).

Thanks for helping me refine my argument, Judy.

jt
Received on Wed Jul 28 07:22:07 2004