Type Form & Function

PRINCIPLES

“Good design, at least part of the time, includes the criterion of being direct in relation to the problem at hand—not obscure, trendy, or stylish. A new language, visual or verbal, must be couched in a language that is already understood.”

—Ivan Chermayeff 1989

The written word is arguably one of humankind’s greatest inventions, but few people could care less about the difference between Arial and Helvetica, tick marks and quotes, en dashes and em dashes. In a perfect world, future generations would learn about those formal issues in grammar school, about the time when most students first lay their hands on a computer keyboard and mouse. Even if that happened before the year 2020, and youngsters could tell you the difference between ...