Two Faces
For the past 15 years, I’ve used two typefaces in most of my work: a serif for text, and a sans for headers & interface. Here is the chronology, for those who are morbidly curious:
Sans
- National (2008–2010)
- Documenta Sans (2010-11)
- Flama (2011—)
Serif
There are exceptions, of course. Sidenotes for my first book were in Skopex; some products have their own typefaces, like Zine, Comspot, and Mallory; other languages & scripts need their own glyphs to fill in; monospace continues to be the death of me.
But the broad rule is to work with two faces as much as I possibly can. The goal is to speak with a consistent voice, and to really understand the contours of a typeface. (Ideally, you want only one, but I have always preferred the character and contemporary vibe of a sans header. No clue why.)
I first became interested in design in the mid-nineties, when contemporary design was dominated by maximalists like David Carson, K10k, Praystation, and Emigre. Most culture is a pendulum, though, where what’s out becomes in and vice-versa, and I started preferring something quieter. Even in 1997, I worked with a few colors at once, always one typeface. At the time, I had no idea that Apple, of all places, would usher in a generational shift towards minimalism and traditional craft. I also had no idea what “traditional craft” meant. And I had no idea that for centuries, typographers worked exclusively with one face.
In 2004, I found Bringhurst, which permanently changed my life and my career. He recommended that you start with one or two good typefaces, understand them deeply, and work your way over to others.
I never bothered to expand my horizons, because why would I? There has always been so much in front of me. A good typeface family is something that you learn. You figure out its quirks, what glyphs to use where (think regular v. italic ampersands), what ligatures to turn on, what to leave off. You understand constraints. You feel out the walls of the room. And it isn’t something with an end. Every text is unique, every project is unique, and every engagement with a typeface is unique.
I recently wrote some text about photography, and I think the best analogy in other visual arts is in working with a prime lens, or possibly in working exclusively in black & white. You establish some parameters that guide the work, and then you work within those parameters to do what you can. Programmers do this all the time, every time they choose a framework or a language. Designers, too, create style guides, design systems, and other structures for there creation & curation of new work.
I’m about halfway through my career, and the likelihood of my choosing a new typeface seems slim. Brabo fits. Flama is amazing for interfaces, highly underrated & misunderstood. I’m not really looking at new developments in typefaces, and most of them seem to be geared around either corporate sans use, or a wilder, 70s-styled vibe. It’s hard finding something durable & flexible, something that will express the tonality of the thing while also sufficiently getting out of my way.
Change doesn’t really matter, though. What matters is that I went through this exercise in the first place. I searched hundreds of typefaces before settling on everything. I have found this exercise to be profoundly enriching, and I invite everyone reading this to pursue the same, should they find any need to style any of their personal or professional work.
How to do it
The way you can do this is by, well, looking at an ungodly amount of typefaces, and narrowing down what resonates with you. What do you typically find yourself writing about? Are you setting writing or text? (There is a difference.)
Some things to note:
- Typeface design is sorted into historical eras, with almost all sans-serif design occurring after 1900 and almost all stylistic rule-breaking occurring after 1950.
- Throw away all display faces when you’re sifting through your type. You want your type to be flexible to a variety of projects; keep it to classic sans or serif faces. Go with something wilder for your primary headlines, titles, and logotype.
- Almost all good monospace typefaces came out within the past 5 years. People want their text editors to look good!
- Not all type is made equal from a software perspective. Some typefaces don’t have stylistically accurate punctuation marks, diacritics, kerning tables (defining the spaces between pairs of letters), or even accurate word spacing. This can be solved by spending money, but even that is not a guarantee, since some classic styles are overpriced by monopolistic companies.
- In type as in life, you get what you pay for – and the creation of type is monstrously difficult. Please literally pay for your typefaces. You get a better product, and you support someone’s creative work. Google Fonts is ruining a whole industry, the end.
- You will not find a pan-script typeface. You buy typefaces typically for Latin, with some Eastern European add-ons. Cyrillic and Greek are pluses. (The math variables you get from a Latin face are not Greek.) Vietnamese diacritic combinations are shockingly undersupported; this resource collects a few. I recommend trying to find something with support for as many diacritic combinations as possible, along with Greek, Cyrillic, and maybe Hebrew. These are few in number, but they are out there.
- For almost all of prewar type, the rule is this: roman type is drawn, italic type is written. That means italic is defined by its cursive nature, not by its slope. This is not the case for most sans type, which is typically oblique in nature.
- You do not need a typeface with 15 weights, or variable weights, or variable widths. Those are recent trends that work well for serious corporate work, and horribly for the individual. Instead, you need a fine-tuned workhorse that can prosper under as many conditions as possible. That is era agnostic, although many digitizations of older typefaces may not be up to the task, feature-wise.
- My favorite places to look for type are FontShop, Village, and independent foundries like Feliciano, Process, and Klim.
Remember that you are seeking an instinctual tonality that matches your own. That involves trusting your own intuition about what you find resonates with yourself. (I could write 2,000 more words on why I settled on Brabo & Flama, but that is for another day.) Run it by others if you want, but ultimately this is for you.