Already almost a month out working and I've made some amazing progress!
My internship at Edible has allowed for many great opportunities in editing, design, and type organization. I've spent a lot of my time working on a solution for organizing a couple thousand fonts, and have made some really significant progress. In taking a volume of files like this and putting it into a reasonable order I've gained exposure to many hundreds of typefaces which really makes me appreciate the work that typographers do nowadays. Also around the office I've had my hand at some typographical editing, looking at drafts for formatting issues, and gaining much-needed perspective on how something like Edible is put together—it takes a lot of very dedicated, hardworking people with an eye for design.
Beyond the internship, I've formed many initial ideas about how I'm going to assemble the nebulous mass that is "typography" into comprehensible containers. There is so much to be learned by just looking at the events surrounding when a typeface was made. So many people analyze how a letter looks, how it reads, but I'm focusing on the other side: the typographer who wanted to make a typeface and what they made satisfied a need, somewhere in the world. What was that need? Did some far-off trade conflict make a sans-serif typeface more popular in France than before? I'm a detective looking for clues and it's really interesting what I've found so far.
Expect another "Story Of:" post soon. The next font I'll be looking at is Jenson.
Great approach! I look forward to your next article.
ReplyDeleteYou're like the Sherlock Holmes of typography! I agree; I like your approach of looking at the need that was satisfied by a particular type-face. Also, it will be interesting to learn about the "face" behind typeface, and what that "face" was trying to do. I have to admit, looking at drafts for formatting issues sounds tedious. How long exactly does that take? Also, you might have mentioned this earlier somewhere, but what exactly does Edible do with their fonts? I guess what I mean to say is: what is the purpose of Edible as a company or what is it's goal?
ReplyDeleteEdible Baja's purpose is to encourage eating good food that's locally sourced. They publish a magazine every two months highlighting the local businesses and food culture of Baja Arizona! In this way, it is very important to make sure that the way the words in the magazine are organized convey the right message. By putting quite an effort into the type, the environment that is created in reading the magazine becomes trustworthy, intelligent, and comfortable. Editing drafts, fine-tuning the letter spacing, all of that, is an important part of creating an experience which feels right, even if the reader doesn't notice why it does.
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