If the purpose of display type style is, more so than body text, to signify a certain kind of tonality (such as
artistic), then ironically, mimicking an “organic” process defeats that purpose, because it just looks like an organic process has been used—whereas as if the medium is clearly faux (note the identical “O”s above), the artifice of the effect, the intent of the signification, is plain to see.
And in comparison with a truly hand-rendered sign (see above, at top), the faux font still operates within a sophisticated, precise layout, suggesting professional quality.
So for this reason, and because it is less work, I am no longer quite so keen on making pseudo-random fonts.
Also, although FontSpring supports <calt> in its online type tester, MyFonts, my primary retailer, does not, which doesn’t exactly help sell the feature.
The following statement, then, holds true at two levels—for the typographer who may appreciate the cleverness of a pseudo-random effect when it is employed, and for the end-reader for whom all rendered letters are fonts, when it isn’t.
“…we don’t look for definition or richness of imagination in (synthetic) images; we look for the giddiness of their superficiality, for the artifice of the detail, the intimacy of their technique. What we truly desire is their technical artificiality, and nothing more.” —Jean Baudrillard
Photo taken at Maggioly Art Supplies store, Orangeville, Ontario
Comments
I beg to differ: you own it, as admitted by your thought of <calt>. In Baudrillard’s words, you instinctively “desire technical artificiality”.
Similarly, the other half of my theory is that for the lay reader, a sophisticated layout that signifies “home made” is preferable to an actual home-made design.