Garfield’s style crusade on the world of print
“In my new book I picked my eight worst fonts — fonts which are overused, or used incorrectly, a list which doesn’t even include Comic Sans — and the London Olympic font is number one.
“The Games logo was released first, which provoked a big outcry, and then the typeface came out under the wire.
“I apply for tickets every week for the games and the email responses I get all have that typeface.”
Leaving aside the inherent ridiculousness of Comic Sans, what’s so bad?
“It’s the most unathletic font one could imagine,” says Garfield. “It looks like it was created in a great rush. Cut out of paper. If you were a kid in school asked to create the word ‘ticket’ out of paper, then it looks like what would result. The Olympics represents athletic beauty, you think of speed, strength, agility, elegance — and this typeface has none of them.
“As someone who thinks of type quite a lot — and as a Londoner — it makes me slightly ashamed that this is the best we can present to the world. I thought I’d get used to it by now, but I haven’t. I think it’s getting worse. I hope they don’t put it on the medals, but I fear they might.
“It’s rare that a typeface becomes so public so fast — the other obvious one is Gotham, invented in 2000, which Barack Obama’s campaign adopted — but the London one... I just hang my head in shame.”
Oh dear. As you may have guessed, Garfield is passionate about fonts and typefaces, as evidenced in the new book he refers to. Just My Type is a New York Times bestseller which tells you everything you need to know about fonts and typefaces — in a hugely entertaining way.
One of the book’s selling points is the suggestion that the font you use says something about you, so we wondered if Simon might care to look at a few fonts and extrapolate for us.
He said yes, so we sent him links to gaa.ie, FAI.ie and IRFU.ie and asked for his thoughts on the fonts used by those organisations.
Good, bad or indifferent? “Looking at it from the outside, some of these have a slightly cliched look — a lot of shamrocks, a lot of white on green. If I’d designed it as an Englishman, people would say ‘it’s such a cliched view of the Irish’, though it’s no more obvious than the FA using the cross of St George, or a Scottish sports body using, say...”
A deep-fried Mars bar?
“Well, I was going to say tartan, but I am a bit jetlagged.
“What’s interesting is that the letters used are pretty similar. Without question there’s an Irish look in terms of fonts and I was wondering where it came from, and the earliest example of that Irish look I could find was designed by an Austrian, Victor Hammer, with no obvious links to Ireland.
“Hammer designed American Uncial, which is a classic Gaelic font, in the late 40s, and we identify it as Irish, or its updated form, Celtic VP. Looking at the ‘Ireland’ in the Republic of Ireland on the FAI website, for instance, and you can see that. The R, E or A, you think ‘that’s Irish’.”
You may think the link between fonts and sport a bit tenuous, but Garfield’s way with an anecdote overcomes any reservations. When we ask about fonts used by sports teams and organisations he lays out a winner.
“Wimbledon’s is quite good. They use green and white with a lovely mauve, and a fairly modern font — a capital Sans Serif, which gives it a modern feel — and it just works well.
“American sports have some nice fonts. The New York Knicks basketball team’s font is quite dynamic, while the New York Yankees, which many people would be familiar with, use an old-fashioned Copperplate. That’s a classic American Gothic font, which is obviously quite rooted in the culture. Their logo, the Y within the N, has a very interesting pedigree too.”
Garfield recounts the story — the famous elongated Y laid across the centre of the N was originally designed in the 19th century to adorn a medal which was to be awarded to the first New York City policeman shot in the line of duty.
The designer? One Louis Tiffany. Of Tiffany’s, Fifth Avenue, New York.
“The Yankees adopted that symbol in 1909,” says Garfield. “Obviously what could say ‘New York’ more than the medal they gave to the bravest policemen in the city?”
Just My Type is out in paperback in a few weeks. You know what to do.
* For all my pals at Bishopstown GAA club — don’t forget to vote for them in this competition in the next day or two. http://etihadgaa.ie/final_vote/entry/bishopstown-cork/
* Contact: michael.moynihan@examiner.ie Twitter: MikeMoynihanEx
