Danny O'Murphy, barbershop quartet tenor

Last month, my friend Allan Haley asked us to design a web banner for fonts.com. When he sent us the typeface to promote, Ratio Modern, I immediately fell in love with the parentheses. This is what happens if you are a type geek. It’s so geeky that Star Wars fanatics at Comic Con would probably laugh at me.

Every day, I drive by a billboard in Hollywood of a Groucho Marx caricature. I have no idea what it is for, but it’s the best part of the drive. As I sat in traffic staring at the billboard, I realized that the Ratio Modern parentheses are like a wonderful moustache, and I couldn’t let this opportunity pass. This opened the Pandora’s Box of other type characters (no pun intended). I recall a sculptor telling me, “The figure is trapped in the marble. I only set it free.” And it turned out that this was true with typography. The barbershop quartet guy, surprised woman, uptight starlet with a beehive, Don Quixote dapper dude, and cranky queen all were alive hiding inside the letters.

The Groucho Marx billboard, Santa Monica Blvd.

Sue from Brentwood

Diana Diamonds, MGM starlet

Don Francisco Pico of Rancho Del Zocalo

Queen Letitia of Lichtenstein

fonts.com banner

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Laugh-In magazine headline, 1968

Let’s be honest, when I’m at a party I love when someone gets rip-roarin’ drunk and makes a crazy fool of himself. Usually that person is me, and I’m wearing the lampshade. I can’t say I recall any of the most embarrassing moments, although I did have a taxi go through a Jack in the Box drive thru at 2 in the morning.

I also love when type gets drunk and wonky. I’m not talking about type that is a tiny bit “wacky”. I like the stuff that is out of control all over the place. The 1950s and 60s were a haven for drunk type. I imagine, based on Mad Men, that the designers were smashed at work, so the type followed. Today, there is less crazed drinking at work (most days). This results in stand-up sober, polite typography. Which is fine when it’s at a meeting of neurologists or CEOs, but let’s agree that type should be let out to have a groovy time once in a while.

Magazine page, 1968

Sprite packaging, 1950s

Pillow Talk titles, 1959

John Hubley, Director, Film title, 1966

John Severson, The Angry Sea, 1963

New York World's Fair banner, 1964

Lost in Space opening titles, 1968

Paul Rand, Apparel Arts, 1939

50 Guitars Visit Hawaii, 1962

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Herb Lubalin

What I want to talk about here is fat. Not “phat” fat, but fat fat. Everyone is concerned about the country getting fatter. But what happened to typography and shapes in the late 1960s and 1970s? They got fat. I understand the issue of anti-consumerism. Coming from an anti-establishment counter-culture environment in the 1960s, companies needed to make messages and products “big.” Bigger was better, and if it could also be in earth colors and look natural, even better. If I actually purchased an item, rather than making it on my loom at home with macramé, I wanted to know I was getting my money’s worth. So we see fat logos, wide lapels and ties, big shirt collars, bell bottoms, and giant brown cars.

I am ashamed to admit this, but I like fat Victorian shapes. It’s as if the Garamond and curly shapes ate too many French fries and went from delicate to, well, very, very healthy. All the years of praising refined letterforms and deriding bold serifs have led to this shameful admission. Granted, in the hands of a master such as Herb Lubalin or Tom Carnase, the results are spectacular. But, when abused by someone less adroit, the result is clunky, horsey, and vomitous (yes this is now a word when discussing ugly typography). I hope this post will prove my veracity and commitment to the truth. We only tell the truth here, at any cost. This admission will, no doubt, ruin any chances of ever receiving an AIGA medal, being invited to join AGI, or being spoken to by any of my friends. So be kind when you find me at a conference sitting alone as other designers point and whisper, “Oh, yes, it’s true. He has a secret thing for the chunky type.”

Ray Barber

Herb Lubalin

Herb Lubalin

Unknown

Bob Peak

Unknown

Disneyland

Herb Lubalin

Herb Lubalin

Herb Lubalin

Herb Lubalin

Herb Lubalin

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I love numerals. I don’t know why, but I love the chance to use them. Maybe I like them because they are another language than letters that is pure and universal. Or, perhaps I just think anything looks better with a big numeral. This attraction leads me to photograph numbers around the world. As usual, while other people are photographing their families, I am taking photos of the gate numbers at the Honolulu Airport, or a street number in New Orleans Square. The title sequence for Lost in Space is a number lover’s heaven. Last week, I worked on a spread of only numbers for the Academy’s annual report. That was a good day.

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The tool for your salvation

I hate bad punctuation. There is no reason to set anything in all lower case letters, unless it is a website or you are E.E. Cummings. Obviously, actual quotation marks are always necessary with dialogue. And there is no excuse for hyphens used where an en dash is required.

In the time before, when people spelled correctly, editors used proofreading marks to catch typographic and content errors and changes. As a young designer, I received corrections or revisions to the text on something called a “galley” with the date and time. The galleys were marked up with funny marks that indicated changes. These were proofreading marks. As I made the corrections, I marked each one with a highlighting pen. The galley was then set aside as a “foul galley.” This had nothing to do with chicken or “fowl.”

This may seem antiquated and overly detail oriented, but it saved time and mistakes. Today, I receive pdf. files with long comments such as “change shortcut to “detour” and move the third line of the second paragraph to the fifth paragraph after the last sentence”. As a limited individual, I am left confused. Consequently, I do my best to understand the request and make the necessary change. Of course, it is typically wrong, and the client is sure I am negligent or deliberately not making the change. If only I received a clear document with legible proofreading marks. But, perhaps this is like asking people to leave calling cards when they visit. Yet another example of the decline of western civilization.

In the spirit of giving back, I share the AdamsMorioka proofreading chart. Feel free to distribute it to the next client who suggests, “replace the a in the subhead with an e, then move the line to the left. Change the fifth telephone number to a 310 area code, except the one on the back which should be 212.”

AdamsMorioka proof marks

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