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Quote by Michael Bierut

“Most people have no idea how much goes into designing a typeface. Twenty-six letters in the alphabet, usually with two versions of each, upper and lower case. Punctuation and alternate characters and numbers - let's not forget numbers - can add another 40 or so.”

Quote by Michael Bierut

Author

Michael Bierut, born in 1957, is an accomplished graphic designer from the United States. His work spans a wide range of fields, from brand identity to book design, and is renowned for its unique style and creativity. more

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“I'm not an expert in typefaces that serve scientific writing, but I'd guess that's another dozen or two.”

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“There was a time when most people had a choice between two kinds of personal communication, handwriting or using a typewriter. Today, people are invited to choose from a list of (surprisingly exotic) typefaces every time they turn on their computer. I think this has made everyone more aware of the idea that picking a typeface is a conscious choice.”

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“Certain kinds of typeface design and typographic design are designed to persuade: we can make this company look modern if we use a crisp sans serif typeface, or we can make this restaurant look like its been around forever if we use typefaces and layout styles that have been around forever too. But there are other categories, and ballot design is one of them, where the goal should be to be purely functional. There have been notable failures in this category.”

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“The design of the notorious Palm Beach County "butterfly ballot" in the 2000 Presidential election is certainly one of them. But I would say most of the time this is less about a conscious attempt to manipulate an outcome, and more about pure ineptitude.”

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“I think once the artistic world of the type designer merged with the scientific world of the computer programmer, you began to see this crossover.”

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“For instance, I assume those "carrots" we have on our keyboards were there originally to express "greater than" and "less than." Then they were adopted by coders, and now they show up all the time in the way email addresses are constructed. At least I think that's what happened.”

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“We use the word typography to describe two different things: the design of letterforms, and the layout of typeset passages on a page. Both of those experiences are really important to communicating information, especially when that information involves complex ideas.”

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“A simple MS Word document, or a Powerpoint presentation, has its limits, particularly the unpredictability in how the page will actually display. With a PDF, you are locking down all those variables.”

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“The studies I've seen about readability and legibility tend to focus on a specific set of metrics: size, not just the point size, but things like the size of the lower case letters as a proportion of the overall letter height, and line length. People simply can't read really small type set in really long lines.”

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“We get used to things, and we like reading the way we're used to reading.”

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Author:Michael Bierut