he cried his eyes out
I worked with Linotype Janson Text and Linotype Sabon yesterday. Doubleheader,
and I went two for two. What a privilege to set type using a couple
of the most beautiful text faces in existence! No pretense, no eccentricities
– just regal strength. And a strength that was preserved and
even reinforced in the transition from metal to bits.
What a letdown I had today, then, to use another Linotype digitization.
Electra – in metal – is one of my favorite book faces of all.
Somehow so distinctive and so transparent. Pick up a few American
books of the 50s and you’ll find Electra and will feel the force of
it. A pioneering design, and one of the few original faces of the
20th century. But surely Dwiggins is rolling now, and for good reason.
For his first serifed face became emaciated upon digitization and
there is little hope of it fattening up anytime soon.
Bringhurst writes of digital translations that are too faithful to the originals.
The translation of Electra is perhaps faithful to the metal matrices,
but not to the impression of ink into paper.
But never mind that. Eager to build your type library, you recall the
letterpress-induced robustness of it in your parents’ college texts,
you see the anti-aliased gifs of its digitized version at 72 pt, and
then...the music begins to play. One of the strangest medleys
you’ve ever heard, too: A bizarre mix of “God Bless America,”
“Misty,” and “Feelin’ Massachusetts.” Swooning
and dizzy, you license.
You fire up InDesign (and wait...and wait a little more) and proceed
to set some text. You print at increasingly large sizes. Twelve point
isn’t quite dark enough; neither are 14 or 16 or 18. You attempt to
diagnose; where is the problem? Do you need a new ink cartridge? Were
you using some kind of light weight that you didn't know about? After
fifteen minutes of fretting, fussing, and unsuccessful fixing, you
begin your procession through the five stages of grief.
1. Denial: “I didn’t really just...did I? No, couldn't have. I’m sure
I cancelled at the last minute again. Logged right off, I did. Yup.”
2. Anger: “Goddammit, who the hell digitized this? If I spoke even a shred
of intelligible German, I would call up Linotype right now and give
them a piece of my mind, I would...!”
3. Bargaining: “Dear God, if I take a little coffee break and my new font looks
heavier when I come back, I’ll start going to church again.”
4. Depression: “Just...just screw this whole typography thing. Nobody really
notices this stuff anyway, do they? Real small caps, fake small caps...lining
numerals, old style numerals...hyphens, en dashes...who cares?
Besides, Times New Roman isn’t all that bad.”
5. Acceptance: “Yes, I bought versions 1 and 2. Display type included, along
with those Caravan border thingies. Oh well, it’s a piece of history,
right?”
Don’t get me started on Granjon.
01-September 2002
