Type design in the 1990s, Demystification and re-mystification

The magic year of 2000 has brought us little of what was expected a decade ago. Nevertheless it has freed us of the nervousness of the fin-de-siècle and enabled us to take a sober look at the recent past. Looking back from the perspective of these ‘three zeros’, the Nineties seem to be rich in events and full of changes in the fields of international politics and economics.

In typography, the last decade of the Twentieth Century was a period of great expectations, significant technological progress, many experiments and controversial results.

The early 90s were still under the influence of post-structuralistic theories and one of the results of this was the infantile idea that text is a picture and vice versa. It took designers nearly a decade to realize that text is text and differs from a picture in its potential to communicate. This contributed to the further realization that reading is not a passive process but a complex set of activities. The process of reading is not linear. On the contrary, it is dynamic and active. The use of typography is one of the ways to make reading easier and thus the manipulation of type and space has a fundamental influence upon the reader. Typography helps us to guide the reader, interpret content (or contradict it), create a certain atmosphere or declare the author’s intentions…

Democratization
In history, there are many examples that show that designers’ professional specialization became frustrating for them. The complexity of their profession meant that work seemed to be divided between creative work and the subsequent execution of that work. Stanley Morison and Jan van Krimpen already believed that typography standards could only be raised if the differences between production and design were minimized and the whole process were to become more transparent. In 1985, Adobe Systems introduced PostScript, a language for defining graphical pages. For the first time, a designer now had complete control over the whole creative process. The accessibility and reduction in prices in the field of computer technology, resulted in the so-called ‘democratization’ of the profession. In 1990, Matthew Carter a British typographer living in the United States was able to declare: ‘As part of the democratization of industry, the creation of type has been demystified.’ Thanks to the popularity of programs for the creation of typefaces, the process of typography changed quickly. Within a few years, designers had created the same number of new typefaces as they had done in the whole 500–year history of typography. The main reason for this hyper-production was technological progress and the fascination of novelty. A kind of naïve modern duty to create new things compelled people to keep on designing. Jeff Keedy, Professor at Cal Arts, attempted to defend technological ecstasy by claiming: ‘It’s not possible to create new typography with old typefaces. Why do so many typographers try to achieve the impossible – a new typography with old fonts?’

Results
The reason so many fonts have been created is that today’s technology makes it easier. As a result, it is possible to view fonts simply as a digital simulation of previous technologies. In the same way, other fonts are created that are the outcome of the possibilities and limitations that are offered by computers. Typefaces such as Blur or Autotrace openly accept this kind of inspiration as far as having it reflected in their names. Moreover, they even carry the name of the filter which was used to create them.

In this new climate, a designer not only follows the demands of the market but can also fulfill exceptional requests. The situation has changed dramatically. A designer has the chance to influence his work and the work that is demanded of him. A typical example are the typefaces of the Dutch duo Letterror, whose innovative work has greatly influenced typography. Both designers have created their own space within the field and use their work to persuade the public that it needs them.

Technological progress forced some companies to reevaluate their classification systems as they found that their old ones were unsuitable. Digital typefaces negated the existing categories and typefaces were no longer limited to serif and sans-serif but also included such styles as semi-serif and mix. The new typefaces forced the creation of their own categories. FontShop introduced an innovative system, which takes all possible inspirations into account. According to their new classification, we can now divide typefaces into the following categories: typographic, geometric, amorphous, ironic, historic, intelligent, handwritten and destructive.
The first digital type foundries were set up in the mid-80s, and early 90s. The pioneers were Emigre (1984), followed by FontShop (1991), and smaller firms such as T26, House Industries, Garage Fronts, Thirstype etc. The work of these firms is astonishingly similar which proves that technological limitations have taken control of the profession.

The year 1991 saw the start of Fuse, ‘the project for language research’. Its founders Neville Brody and Jon Wozencroft have characterized it as ‘an attempt to bring together graphic designs, popular cultures and philosophy’. The importance of this project was confirmed when it was made part of the permanent collection of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, but even Fuse did not manage to evade the traps of empty formal games. Ignoring developments in the field of graphic design Fuse continued along its course until 1999.

The typefaces of the 90‘s became commercially successful very quickly and sold better than traditional bestsellers such as Futura, Univers and Garamond. The design of new fonts took a fraction of the time needed for classical fonts and their financial success surpassed that of classical typefaces. In 1995, FontShop’s bestsellers were Blur, Instant Type, Meta and Trixie.
All of them, with the exception of Meta, were created as result of the influence of new technology and reaction to the computer aesthetics. This could probably be compared to a situation in which the Pixies were to sell more records than the Rolling Stones.

Re-mystification
The arrival of digital technology meant that typeface design was no longer the domain of specialists. Few people realized that the democratization of typography might also endanger the existence of professional designers. What would happen if anyone could buy the means to create comparable work? It would be much easier to create a typeface than apply it. It would become difficult to sell a font and typographers would find themselves having to explain the difference between the work of a professional and that of an amateur. Since graphic design and typography are not classified as professions (unlike architecture), such an explanation would be made quite difficult. Professionals who up until now had found their position to be unshakeable, found themselves making obscure attempts to stress these unclear differences.

I always mistrusted fonts with suggestive names such as ‘display’, ‘headline’ or ‘text’. How can a designer limit their usage by naming them in such a way? A good typeface will always find its application and the user is usually intelligent enough to use it to his advantage. Even though I thought that this was a trend of the 80‘s, today’s type foundries are producing typefaces called „web“ and „correspondence“. This seems to me as absurd as if the Beatles had stuck a label on their records saying: ‘Listen only in the dark’ or if Sting were to insist that his records were ‘music for Saturday afternoons only’. In my opinion, such naming only takes place in an effort to make it obvious to the layman that typography is not at all transparent. We should use Myriad for printed matter and Myriad Web for use on screen, despite the fact that there is no visible difference between them. FontShop for example offers Meta and Meta Correspondence, one for office use and one for everyday use. They believe that some people might only need Meta whilst others might need both. The difference between both fonts is minimal, only the spacing of the font has been adjusted. I cannot imagine that a typographer would buy both fonts when he can get the same result by using any graphic editor to change the letter-spacing.

Such tactics employed by type foundries seem alarming. The concealment of facts or the stressing of font names and their accompanying instructions amounts to a re-mystification of a once democratized profession. Similar trends attempt to present typography as an exclusive field which can only be understood by experts and the uninitiated should not even attempt to enter.

Type design in the 1990s, Demystification and re-mystification by Peter Biľak

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