July 24, 2005

I am endlessly sorry to Faustus and his readers for being so derelict in my duties. Just about all my waking hours for the last few days have been spent in the midst of fellow typography nerds at Typecon, where we all get to let our freak flags fly and rant about the differences between the 7 different versions of Garamond (including Sabon, the pseudo-Garamond) without getting crazy looks. Sadly, I had to pass up a few cool type-drawing workshops because work duties overlapped with the conference more than I was expecting. I also had to miss a walking tour of some classic NYC signage, which was especialyl disappointing since the Times pointed out that one of the stops was my old high school, where apparently, “The ‘R’ is too small in the bowl, and too long in the leg.”

As tired as I am (since all the sleeping hours were spent trying to fend off the summer combo of cold/allergy attack), I have to hustle back there this morning looking as cute as possible, since my colleague Ina Saltz is giving a talk about typographic tattoos that will include some pictures of my work. If Erik Spiekermann finds me to yell about the why I altered the position of the dots in my Meta Bold umlaut, I want to at least look presentable.

Aw, who am I kidding? I want to look cute for all the cute type geeks who’ll come up and admire my arms afterward.

Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to I am endlessly sorry to

  1. sangroncito says:

    how ’bout a pic of those arms?

    Reply
  2. matt says:

    But Sparky, you’re missing a haiku.

    How about:

    We hate Arial
    Helvetica wins hands down
    Of course it matters!

    Reply
  3. birdfarm says:

    Hey, I used to be a type geek! Did you, too, spend hours tracing alphabets with tracing paper, have the tracings stuck on the wall and criticized by the teacher?

    I actually like Sabon–I think it’s more than just a pseudo-Garamond, because unlike Garamond it goes well with Frutiger, creating a lovely pairing for title & text. God, I loved Frutiger… did you know the entire Atlanta airport is done in Frutiger? I was in heaven when I discovered that….

    I can’t stand Helvetica; I think it’s boring and over-used. Of course Arial is much worse, but nobody’s arguing that. The absolute worst, hands down, at least among the classic “normal” faces (let’s not even start with Scrumbled etc.) is Optima. Ugh.

    I miss New York. (anybody detecting some inconsistency in my sentiments toward New York is not mistaken, but anybody who denies some fluctuation in his/her own sentiments on the topic is surely either extremely rich or lying).

    I sure woulda loved the walking tour……

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *