If, on every Wednesday preceding the annual type conference, we define x to represent time, and y to denote our perceptual correlate of it, then the relation y = e^x holds as we move through the day. For it all comes down to Wednesday: The workshops, the type galleries, the registration desk, the computer network, the evening presentation, and all the little details like having enough pens and tape and power strips and goodie bags and t-shirts and and and and and. If God truly is in the details, just as Mies Van der Rohe claimed he was, then why do the details perennially plague us so?
For me, well, it’s a matter of me and Tiffany getting the marketplace going: It’s the unpacking, the inventory, the vendors, the commerce, and the display. But I’m distracted – I’m thinking about Frutiger in an obsessive way, for today is Wednesday, and I’ve got a Saturday deadline. Tiffany and I will be on that stage at 5:00, and we just cannot fuck this up. We have to say something perceptive, sensitive, and intelligent; we’ve got to get the speakers on and off smoothly; we’ve got to be polished and professional, because we’re representing SOTA, and because everyone will be there, and did I mention already that we just cannot fuck this up?
As I sit here alone tonight, and as I mull over Frutiger’s place in the pantheon of 20th century type designers, I realize I’ve got a problem – to be specfic, a problem of context. Where, exactly, do I put him? I feel as if I’m reaching an impasse, for this mathematician, symbologist, morphologist, sculptor, semiotician, and typeface designer just doesn’t seem to fit.
I’m thinking that the Greek philosophers might have had a problem classifying Frutiger as well. (N.B. I am neither Greek, nor am I a philosopher, but my wife is a classicist, and sometimes she lets me look at her books.) One of the fundamental distinctions in Greek philosophy is that of epistêmê vs. technê, or of theory vs. practice, or knowledge vs. craft. I read that Plotinus was pretty harsh on the idea of mere technê, or craft – it had no soul. I also read that Plato was more forgiving of the concept of craft and of the role of the craftsman. It was lower in the hierarchy, but at least it was part of it. And what about Aristotle? Didn’t he draw some kind of distinction, too? Problem is, Adrian Frutiger operates in the dual realms of epistêmê and technê, of knowledge and craft. His type is imbued with the skill of the consummate craftsman, and his scholarship is infused with a profound understanding of form, language, and meaning.
I’m worrying that this has nothing whatsoever to do with anything pertinent to the objective; but if it does, how will I link it to Bach, and to Frutiger, and do such links even make sense? In the end, I’m concerned that no matter how appropriate our analogies are, and how perceptive and polished and professional we may seem, we still just might fuck this up.