“Designers provide ways into—and out of—the flood of words by breaking up text into pieces and offering shortcuts and alternate routes through masses of information. (…) Although many books define the purpose of typography as enhancing the readability of the written word, one of design’s most humane functions is, in actuality, to help readers avoid reading.”
– Ellen Lupton, Thinking with Type
“Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form.”
– Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style
” Geometry can produce legible letter but art alone makes them beautiful.
Art begins where geometry ends, and imparts to letters a character
trascending mere measurement. ”
– Paul Standard, 1947
” It is the designer/typographer’s task to match form with content;
to create an authoritative document. ”
– Nick Shinn
” ‘What designers do’ is to harmonize and optimize all the variables in a design.
Real designers don’t design documents where type style may be changed willy-nilly:
you change one thing, everything changes. What a designer needs is good taste,
an eye for detail, and a sense of which way the cultural wind is blowing. ”
– Nich Shinn
” Type design is one of the most visible and widespread forms
of graphic expression in daily life. It is still not noticed by all
readers of newspapers, magazines or books. Nevertheless letter forms
reflect the style of a period, and its cultural background.
We are surrounded by them everywhere.
The designer of new typefaces works in extremely small dimensions in
shaping a letter, and he is also limited by the traditional forms of
the alphabet. There are few possibilities for new ideas, for a good design
should not have eccentric and unusual details.
But the compromises required in designing for metal type can be ignored
today because the new digital technology allows freedom in making new designs.
Typography is two-dimensional architecture, based on experience and
imagination, and guided by rules and readability. And this is the purpose
of typography: The arrangement of design elements within a given structure
should allow the reader to easily focus on the message, without slowing
down the speed of his reading. ”
– Hermann Zapf (1918-)
” The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee.
It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for
a solution appropriate to his personal style. But one must learn
how to use the grid ; it is an art that requires practice. ”
– Josef Müller-Brockmann