Things you need to know about fonts … the #fontfacts

Fonts, typefaces, lettering … I love them all.

And that’s before I get started on point size, tracking and kerning.

I am genuinely fascinated by fonts and typography but thought I’d try to engage beyond my beloved font geek demographic.

So I’ve pulled together some font trivia  – fun font facts, if you will – which should help you hold forth with new confidence on the subject.

Let’s start with definitions: typography. This is the art of arranging letters and text in a way that makes the copy legible, clear, and visually appealing to the reader.

A font is a collection of characters with a similar design. These characters include lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and symbols.

On the serif-ery

And what is the difference between serif and sans serif fonts?

Well, a serif is a decorative line or taper added to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol. It creates small horizontal and vertical planes within a word.

Serif fonts have them, and sans serif don’t (sans being French for “without”).

Simple!

Why do we have them?

Not so simple.

The theory goes that when the Roman letter outlines were first painted onto stone, the stone carvers followed the brush marks, which flared at stroke ends and corners, creating serifs.

Serif typefaces have historically been credited with increasing legibility – the reading speed of long passages of text – because they help the eye travel across a line.

Headlines, titles and – tellingly – warning signs all traditionally use sans serif fonts because these are seen as more immediately readable, with words standing out more.

DON’T SHOUT!

But what about how we use text in everyday life?

If the many vagaries of fonts and colours in work emails frustrate you (and the use of emojis – you know who you are), spare a thought for Vicki Walker.

Vicki, an accountant in New Zealand, was sacked in 2007 for sending “confrontational” emails with words in red, in bold and in capital letters.

Her employer maintained she had caused disharmony in the workplace by using block capitals, bold typeface and red text in her emails. Imagine.

Unsurprisingly, the case ended up before an employment tribunal.

An email from Vicki to her colleagues was used in evidence, advising her team on how to fill out staff claim forms.

It specifies a time and date – highlighted in bold red – as well as a SENTENCE WRITTEN IN CAPITALS and highlighted in bold blue. It reads: “To ensure your staff claim is processed and paid, please do follow the below checklist.”

The tribunal found that Vicki hadn’t received any warnings, and while she had contributed to disharmony in the workplace it was not to the extent that dismissal was fair or reasonable.

She was awarded NZ$17,000 for unfair dismissal.

Which still doesn’t prove that emojis aren’t a sackable offence.

An April Fool font geek’s paradise

On 1 April 1977 the Guardian produced a seven-page travel supplement on the tiny tropical republic of San Serriffe, “a small archipeligo, its main islands grouped roughly in the shape of a semicolon, in the Indian Ocean”, which was apparently celebrating 10 years of independence.

The country was in fact completely made up as an April Fool’s joke.

The name San Serriffe and the shape of the islands were just the first clues; everything connected with San Serriffe was named after printing and typesetting terms.

The name itself refers to sans serif typefaces; Bodoni, the capital, is a variety of typeface; the two main islands are called Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse, and the whole Republic is ruled over by the dictator General M J Pica, named after a unit of measurement in type.

The idea for the spoof supplement came from Philip Davies, an advertising rep who worked on special reports within the advertising department.

Special reports editor Stuart St Clair Legge suggested the title that was to become a legend: San Serriffe, part typographical pun, part credible name for a tropical isle.

Foreign editor Geoffrey Taylor took care of the editorial content, designing the islands and editing the feature.

San Serriffe has since taken on a life of its own. Shortly after the hoax was published, the Guardian received a letter from the San Serriffe Liberation Front (SSLF), stating how furious they were with the pro-government slant of the Guardian piece.

It ranks at number five in the Museum of Hoaxes’ top 100 April Fool’s Day hoaxes of all time.

Franklin Gothic

Our fondness for Franklin Gothic is shown in the Hoolet logo, which is in Franklin Gothic Heavy – and the colour of owl feathers, but that is another story…

“Gothic” and “grotesque” were terms frequently used in the 19^th century to refer to sans serif fonts.

Incidentally font fact fans, William Caslon IV is credited with the first sans serif printing type for the Latin alphabet, in 1816.

Anyway, Franklin Gothic was created in the early years of the 20th century by Morris Fuller Benton. He named it as an homage to Benjamin Franklin, the founding father of the United States who was a typesetter himself.

Franklin became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1728 at the age of 23. He was granted the freedom of St Andrews in 1759,and described conversations during his visit to Scotland as “the densest happiness of my life”.

But back to the font. It is wide, squat and sure of itself and was the closest that American type would get to Swiss – think Helvetica – and marked the US throwing off the straitjacket of Englishness.

“All American” things tend to use Franklin to press their case, be it the titles on Rocky films or the block capitals on Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster. It was Franklin Gothic Condensed that made the subtitles in the Star Wars movies easy to read.

Time Magazine uses it for their headlines and article titles, and The New York Times features Franklin Gothic in a variety of their section headlines, and both the American and Canadian versions of Scrabble use the font on the letter tiles.

Kick back with Cooper

Spacehoppers, Kickers, easyJet.

Dad’s Army, “you have been watching…”!

All in the same font – Cooper Black. Retro and classic, the font is attached to anything we want to consider warm, fuzzy and reassuring.

It’s appeared on hip-hop album covers, food packaging, and advertising. Perhaps you know it from the Garfield comics, or the Pet Sounds album cover by the Beach Boys.

Oswald Bruce Cooper was a former Chicago advertising man who designed the font in the 1920s. He believed it was “ideal for far-sighted advertisers with near-sighted customers”.

It does look best from afar – as easyJet recognised – because at small sizes, it is legible but not very readable.

The easyJet manual acknowledges that “the Cooper Black font has played an important part in building the ‘easy’ brand. Its bold, confident and distinct appearance has made it recognisable and associated with ‘easy’. Its soft friendly curves have given a warm personality to the ‘easy’ businesses.”

In the 1960s, its gregarious characters fell slightly out of favour with the ad world.

Nevertheless, it has become visual shorthand for the late 60s and early 70s because it was in that era that it was brought out of adland and into the popular culture mainstream.

To typography enthusiasts, Pet Sounds remains Cooper Black’s finest hour.

After appearing on the cover of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds in 1966 it went on to be the typeface of choice on the Doors’ LA Woman in 1971 and David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust in 1972, and in the opening credits of M*A*S*H.

Gill Sans

Eric Gill’s influence can be seen everywhere, from the BBC to Pixar.

He was the creator of one of the 20^th century’s earliest and classic sans serif fonts Gill Sans. It appeared in 1928, and is sometimes referred to as “the Helvetica of England”.

His prime source of inspiration was Edward Johnston’s sans serif lettering for the London Underground.

A modest man – Gill is described on his gravestone as a stone carver – he nonetheless had a very colourful family life.

A 1989 biography revealed some reprehensible aspects of his private life, including acts of incest and bestiality that he documented in his diary, earning him posthumous scorn.

This apparently included being a dog lover in its most unacceptable form. Indeed American designer Barry Deck’s 1990 Canicopulus font was ostensibly a tribute to Gill.

But his legacy can be seen everywhere. The first Penguin book jackets were in Gill Sans, the Church of England used it, as well as British Railways.

You may already have Gill Sans on your system since it has been included as a system font in Mac OS X as well as Adobe CS and some of Microsoft’s products. In 2015, type foundry Monotype unveiled a modern interpretation, a typeface it calls Gill Sans Nova.

He also designed the typeface Joanna, named after his youngest daughter, and – entirely coincidentally – my name.

These are many random facts knitted together, but hopefully they will entice you into the wonderful world of typography.

Next time you have to choose from a dropdown menu, know how much love, passion and hard work has gone into the creation of the thousands of fonts available.

And be happy.

Hoolet is a strategic communications consultancy. Come say hello on Twitter at @hoolet_hoots, or follow us on LinkedIn. You can read more blogs here.

This article was originally released across social media as a intermittent series of #fontfacts.