Just My Type (or not)

So we were talking about the Anthem data breach this morning (like you do), and I mentioned that there were already rumblings about a class action suit against Anthem for insufficient data security, and Danny said "Well, nobody likes Anthem."

Without thinking I said "I like their typeface."

As I said a bunch of years ago, in another venue, I am a little bit of a type snob*. My father designed type (as well as using it as a design element--I grew up in a house full of books of type samples). My brother is, along-side of being a gifted painter, a comic-book letterer. Type was one of many currencies in my house. And even today I find myself biased by a decent-looking typeface. I go for clarity over ornate fussiness (although in certain circumstances a nice copperplate is a lovesome thing). Serif fonts over sans-serif for non-display type. Clarity.

The result of this weird prejudice of mine is that I have to keep an eye out to make sure I'm not opting for a product just because I like the design. And as companies have become more savvy about the power of design, many logos for second-rate products are better than the stuff they identify. For example, Walgreens -- horrid logo -- has a house brand called "Nice" which appears to follow decent design principles: lots of white space, clean, clear typography. It still looks vaguely downmarket to me, but on sober consideration I think that might be the exclamation point.  What do you think?

So that's one more thing that I, as a careful consumer, need to guard against: letting type overrule my judgement. Eternal vigilance is exhausting.







*Within limits. I wouldn't want to read a whole page in Comic Sans, the much-maligned comic-book lettering font that apparently everyone hates, but I don't mind it as a display font.