I’m not sure if I love or hate designers, but I do have one tiny request:
Just build the fucking thing, then I’ll tell you if I’m impressed. I am sick to death of stumbling across web pages raving about all the features and benefits of some new gadget or other, that accidentally fail to mention it’s nothing more than a (rather optimistic) concept and half a dozen computer rendered images.
No, they really don’t.
I’m not arguing that fonts are irrelevant, or that we should all use the same one, or that the same font should be used for every situation. But the idea that a person’s use of font says as much about their writing as their tone says about their speech is just asinine.
For probably 99 percent of the population, the font they use is the one that happens to be set as Default in MS Word, or Dreamweaver, or whatever other piece of software they happen to be using. And, for the most part, the maoin fonts used by the majority of the population look just fine, both on a computer screen and on paper.
As long as they’re not using wingdings or something, assessing someone’s writing based on the font they use would be retarded.
I never thought I’d be attacked, just for doing my fucking job. I’m curious to know what totally-laughable work Transistor Rhythm does, assuming he’s even employed.
And as far as type is concerned . . . If we didn’t have type designers, there’d be no kerning. Hence, the fall of civilization.
Try shopping around a résumé printed in Webdings. Trust me, it makes a statement!
What would actually slow down that assessment?
Back when people had nothing but typewriters, you basically had the choice of a “pica” machine or an “elite” machine. You just sat there and wiggled your fingers, and whatever came out, came out. Sadly, things haven’t changed. People sit at their computers, wiggle their fingers, and if Helvetica comes out, it’s good enough.
We are blessed to live at a time when people have choices we never had before. You can choose the type of phone service you want, the car you drive, the clothes you wear . . . and we have virtually any music that’s ever been composed, right at our fingertips. And yes, an almost endless supply of fonts. Now, nobody’s forcing you to make a choice; if you want to just accept whatever is the default, that’s your prerogative. But remember, ***not ***to choose . . . is also a choice. When I see something in Helvetica or Times Roman, you bet it says something about you.
Designers still had choices - Letraset transfers… and they still sell them:
http://www.letraset.com/craft/shopdisplaycategories.asp?id=76&cat=Lettering
No, it really doesn’t.
Oh, ha, I thought this thread was going to be about The September Issue, which I saw the other night and quite enjoyed, even though fashion is as alien to me as, well, aliens. I saw 3 movies that night about alien cultures, Pandorum, Bright Star and The September Issue.
The September Issue, even though I enjoyed it, was the most alien culture of them all.
What does it say, exactly?
Don’t get me wrong, I care enough about typesetting to use LaTeX for just about everything. But I do not know what that says about me.
Maybe not those two, but Comic Sans sure as hell seems to…
I have no problem with graphic designers so long as they do their job, and let me do mine. I type exclusively in Times New Roman - I made a conscious decision to do so a long time ago precisely because I didn’t want to ever waste time worrying about fonts. If the graphics people want to prettify up my work with more aesthetic typesetting, bully for them. That’s what they’re paid for.
If only a few more clients could understand the relationship so clearly.
Do I go with the kinky sex angle or a reminder that, though UNIX people don’t realize it, an ASCII editor and a markup language are no substitute for a good word processor? He does math stuff, so I’ll go with the former.
Latex? Leather too expensive?
Word.
For the OP: I’ll certainly agree that some designers can be pretty pretentious. But so can some writers, engineers, teachers, lawyers, doctors, chefs and musicians. Anyone who cares enough about what they do to study it for years, work at improving constantly (not just at work, either) and do it every single day is going to know the ins and outs of that field. And those details will escape most people who aren’t in the field.
You don’t see a lot of difference among typefaces? That’s fine. But I do, and it matters a great deal to me which one I use in my work. That doesn’t make me pretentious, that makes me conscientious.
I’m sorry if you’ve run into designers who are arrogant pricks. I don’t like them either. But that doesn’t mean that we’re all a bunch of arrogant pricks.
Yes, it says “If you value your sanity at all, don’t hire me!”
Back in the old AOL SD chat rooms, the chatters could choose their own fonts, and colors, and, I believe, sizes. Sometimes a joker would decide to chat in Webdings or Wingdings. I’m not sure what the point of that was, as nobody else could understand the DingerUser, but maybe they were getting off on typing in nasty words. Back then, your account could be suspended for a while if you said the words “fuck” or “shit”.
Mostly, it says “I’m not the kind of person who thinks the aesthetics of the font I use matter enough to seriously think about it”.
I tend to use either Century Schoolbook or Garamond. I’m not a necessarily a font whore, I mostly use fonts that Microsoft supplies me, but times-new-roman is just ‘meh’.
And I almost never change the font tags here, except for above, because it disturbs the consistency of the reading experience. 
Moved from The BBQ Pit to Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share.
Gfactor
Pit Moderator
How can that be even semi-relevant without representing Papyrus?
