THE LETTER7 Honoring dignity
ONE OF THE MOST ELOQUENT DEFENDERS of excellence in typography is Robert Bringhurst. In his seminal text, The Elements of Typographic Style, Bringhurst frames the notion of honoring the dignity of the text in a twofold manner; briefly, it is this: the text (the content) is paramount, and all else exists to honor it, but letters also have their own life and dignity. Clarifying and ennobling “important” text is an honorable goal, to be sure. And even simple informational texts such as bus schedules and telephone directories deserve to be handled with typographic care and attention.
In a perfect world, all content would be worthy of being honored, but we know too well that a great deal of content is trivial, redundant, ...
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