h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have this weird typeface fetish.

Designer Massimo Vignelli said a designer should only use these 5 typefaces: Bodoni, Helvetica, Times Roman, Century and Futura.

I'd add another two to the list: Franklin Gothic and OCRB, the former because it is very well-designed and legible, and its serif font like forms make it a good crossover sans-serif font, and the latter because in modern design situations a monospaced font is often called for, and OCRB is the best, if you ask me.

However, Helvetica is a strange and beautiful beast. Its strangeness is partly that we use it everywhere, on everything, and never see just how lovely it is.

I just bought the entire set of Helveticas (thin, normal, bold, condensed and extended, and one outline version!) from Linotype -- a present from me to me as I left my last job with a lot more money from redundancy than I'd believed would ever pass through my fingers as a single chunk -- and I will never regret this. Designed in 1957 by Max Miedinger, followed shortly by Univers by Adrian Frutiger in 1958, it has become probably the standard sans-serif typeface, if such a thing exists. It is everywhere.

Don't ask me why, but sometimes as I write instant messages, the letters forming on screen, I suddenly do something -- like type "juice" -- which reminds me how wonderful it is. The austere descender on the j, almost a right angle bend without curve, and the almost perfect ellipse of the c or e, with the perfect proportion of the u ... I sit there and gasp. How can something so beautiful be used so casually every single day by millions without their even noticing? (Well, actually, if you're a Windows user you're probably stuck with Arial, which is a bit leaden. But you know what I mean.)

Before you think I'm an absurd trainspotter (I know ... too late) I am not advocating we all go around collecting typefaces and gasping at lettering, but perhaps something worth taking away is that many common objects we use every day and take for granted are elegantly and usefully designed, and that this is something to enjoy for its own sake.

As is the word juice.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a date at the water cooler.

Should you be allowed out on your own?

I should! I'm campaigning for it, in fact. Free the Shepherd's Bush One! (That's me.)

I'll send you a with a file in it.

Thanks -- can the file be in postscript format so I can send it straight to the printer?

[laughs immoderately at own, appalling, joke]

Anyway, there's nothing wrong with liking small beautiful typeface-like things.

No, there is nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is a bloody great long journal about it!

And the conversational thread on it you've started is how much longer?

-[thbhbthbppp]

Is that a hint to clear of out of your journal?

Damn, no! Good to hear from you.

I think I've opened an enormous can of worms ...

... F19585?thread=199504

the trouble is nobody will shut up about the s**t that happens long enough to try and do anything about it. Someone asked me if I had some constructive ideas, and I put down some hard-won thoughts and then someone comes along bitching about how it's men who damage women and someone else had said exactly the same thing earlier about it being women who damage men and they can't SEE it's all people ... it's all people like us, and that's why we have to fix it or we'll hurt each other and ourselves.

[struggles gamely, then breaks down and bangs head on desk]

help!

Please ....

Oh dear, I can see your point. But h2g2 is like that. No one reads the backlog, so they answer the last person to post, not the first one.

Here, have a and a plaster for your head.

Thanks indeed

I KNEW there should be a redesign!

Ah well ... we pioneers have it tough

Hey ... how are your bitches?

I just had this great idea

F19585?thread=199722

[sniggers]

Great idea!

And my bitches are fine, thank you very much. Hey, aren't you one of them?

Maybe, maybe not.

What does being your bitch entail?

[puts on expression of outward virtue, secretly hopes for something salacious]

love

yo'bitch

Being the butt of all my jokes, doing what I say, and making me lots of

With all those benefits, who needs salacious?

Good point

[worries inwardly]

Have some

Thank you very much. You'll do well.

[worries inwardly more]