In love with Fonts

Yesterday I indulged in a good amount of doing nothing.  I made the mistake of falling asleep with my contact lenses on Monday night, and by Tuesday morning my right eye was as red as ripe cranberry.  The eye has been bothering me enough to not even stand a good read, so I declared a day of staying in bed and watch TV.  Luckily, I have my Netflix queue filled with a whole bunch of goodies, so I was entertained all day long.  And this led me to the most interesting documentary I've seen in a long time.

Helvetica.  Yes, the font.  I saw this documentary devoted to its history and popularity that caught my attention right away.  But, more than Helvetica per se, I was fascinated by the art that created it in the first place, meaning, the type design.

Of course, this is a very specific art.  It has to do with beauty and practicality, with language and the message that it represents.  The basic lines and curves arranged so perfectly, that it gives the impression of having a life of their own.  For example take...

 

This is the letter g in lower case in the font Bakersville.  I read a blog post that described it as fragile, gentle, delicate, soft, fashionable and fun.  And it is all these things! Now g lowercase in Bakersville is an instant favorite.  But one does not take the time to examine language with such detail, and we are missing out on beauty right in front of us.

I know this is a photography blog, and maybe you have no interest in the world about what I am writing about.  But I honestly think that in order to become better photographers, we need to pay attention to art, in general.  Be it in a font, or a drawing, or a piece of good writing, beauty will appear to us through any of these forms.  This in the end will give our eyes a sharp attention to spot beauty when is presented to us. We will have the ability to recognize it and not miss our next good shot.