Allowing type-use topics (graphic design, typography etc)

Eris Alar

I was looking at the rules and the first one is:

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Post topics appropriate for TypeDrawers, and post them in the appropriate category. Dialogue should remain about typeface design, lettering, and subjects that affect the community as a whole. If the topic you wish to discuss doesn’t fit in any of those categories, it’s because there are better venues for subjects like typography advice, typeface identification, and graphic design feedback.

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For me personally, I don't know of any forums that are dedicated to using type, and I've learnt a lot about type usage from Typophile and Type Drawers. Equally, back in the early 00's when I join Typophile the Type ID forum was the major draw, I found it useful and also the place I wanted to spend most of my time. 

So my question is, if there was a dedicated section for using type, would that be so bad? Maybe if those posts did not appear in the global feed (in case it was popular)?

I can see how the laser focus of the forum is a blessing, and I support that, I just don't know the 'better venues' for talking about using type in detail (and maybe the fix is a listing to places people do know about). 

James Hultquist-Todd

I’ve been thinking about this as well and here’s what I came up with:

There’s always been a gulf between the people who use type and the people that make it. If Type Drawers were a place to discuss all aspects of type, from its creation to its use, it seems like that would be a useful service to the design community. A place where graphic designers could interact and learn from type designers and vice versa.

The issue with the Type ID section is that it tends to become the dominant role of the forum.

KP Mawhood

I'm primarily a typographer/graphic designer, and I've learnt so much from TD.

Signposting to TypeID services (e.g. whatthefont) should help. I love the idea of encouraging more interaction between type and typography, and I was struck last year by the D&AD advising that typography is not valued as it should be. This, I feel, must also impact how designers select, license and use fonts?

Re: multilingual/global type –  typographic education also impacts strategic planning for internationalisation (i18n), and organisational maturity to maximise product success in international markets. In broad terms, the type community is ahead of the pack in its sensitivity to culture, region and language. Again, better understanding of user needs, and less retrofitting, should encourage the licensing of type families that fit the brief.

Chris Lozos

As a geezer life long graphic designer and only 17 years as a typeface designer, I straddle both audiences. I almost never see any true discussion of using typography that goes beyond the sort of Bringhurst do's and don'ts or type identification and pairing rules. We Rarely talk about typographic communication. I don't mean a "craft" discussion but a "design" discussion.  This would go to "Why" we design new type faces and what prompts a person to begin the venture. [Steven Heller and Gail Anderson recently published a book the hints at that direction"Type Tales" but it is just a peek.] I would love to see more discussion on this online.

James Hultquist-Todd

Assuming we were to create new topics in this vein, what would you like to see? 

Nick Shinn

The original post should include an image, at least.

James Puckett

I think that this is a bad idea. Typedrawers is supposed to be about type design. Adding sections for more general graphic design stuff is going to flood the main page with people asking the same basic garbage over and over: which book should I read, here is my first school project, what is the best font for this project, etc. This is why the design subreddits are all crap and there are few experienced designers posting there.

Eris Alar

Nick Shinn said:

The original post should include an image, at least.

How? Of what? 

James Puckett said:

I think that this is a bad idea. Typedrawers is supposed to be about type design. Adding sections for more general graphic design stuff is going to flood the main page with people asking the same basic garbage over and over: which book should I read, here is my first school project, what is the best font for this project, etc. This is why the design subreddits are all crap and there are few experienced designers posting there.

Yeah, I worry about that too, and honestly if the leadership and majority felt that way I’d support it. As I said in my OP, if there way a way to not have the usage discussions appear in the main feed that might help, or maybe there are two sections ams you choose which one to show as default for you when you log in (type design or type usage)?

Eric Hu

Seems like the biggest feedback against something like this is the possibility that it spams the homepage—which makes sense.

That being said, I know there's been a discussion elsewhere on here about redesigning the structure of the homepage anyways—one of them being showing individual topic categories  first like a traditional forum.

I think if we go with that restructuring I think it would be fair game to add these topics as well as other ones because it wouldn't really overlap if people just gravitate towards the topics that they want to see.

Not only that, it'd be a chance to learn from each other. Type designers and people who use type don't always see eye to eye—it feels like two different worlds but I don't think it has to be that way and I think it would be a great opportunity for many people to step outside their bubble.

Like, I get it...I can see what could go wrong, but I can also see what could go right?

KP Mawhood

Isn't typography already included, but without dedicated categories?

These days, I refer a lot to UX design blogs to resolve typographic issues for digital products. Yet, there are a lot of solutions that use type badly (and are easy to improve).

A couple of immediate questions spring to mind:

(1) Which typographic conversations help the type business/community? With better understanding of typographic needs, both users and makers can be encouraged to explore type solutions that better fulfil those needs.

(2) Would typographic categories/tags be helpful to find content?

Scott-Martin Kosofsky

It seems to me that there is, already, a forum for some of what’s been suggested: Fontsinuse. Fonstinuse is not, however, a dialogue; you have to look and draw your own conclusions. Something else it doesn’t do, at least not consistently, is disambiguate the sources of the fonts. So, for example, you cannot be sure whose Futura or Baskerville you are seeing—and that’s a real problem, at least in the showings of contemporary work. It would be great if the moderators of the board insisted on that level of font identification, wherever it’s practicable. Nevertheless, Fonstinuse is a great source of information and typographic design.

@EricHu writes:

Type designers and people who use type don't always see eye to eye—it feels like two different worlds but I don't think it has to be that way and I think it would be a great opportunity for many people to step outside their bubble.

What Eric describes is a very sad state of affairs. If type design is not at the service of typography, then what use is it? This is, in my opinion, a fundamental flaw of this forum. Yet, many of the important issues discussed here—the technical ones—are outside the considerations of most practical typographers. Like Chris Lozos, I operate in both worlds, but we are in a very small minority among the denizens of this board. Perhaps the one place where we all meet is in the area of type history. Speaking of history, it should be remembered that until about thirty-five years ago, there was no real possibility for such a thing as type design for its own sake. (Please don’t cite for me exceptions; any you can name are negligible in the greater scheme of things.)

Florian Hardwig

Thanks, Scott-Martin! Fonts In Use is indeed dedicated to all aspects of font use, a.k.a. typography.

Fonstinuse is not, however, a dialogue; you have to look and draw your own conclusions.

It’s definitely not a forum, and rather takes on the form of a searchable archive as well as a daily stream of new Uses. We do offer a comments field underneath each Use, though, and encourage anyone to add their opinion, or ask questions. Granted, it doesn’t happen all too often, but technically it’s possible to have a discourse about a certain application, or the typefaces and techniques employed in it, in the comments. You can subscribe to the comments via RSS.

Something else it doesn’t do, at least not consistently, is disambiguate the sources of the fonts. So, for example, you cannot be sure whose Futura or Baskerville you are seeing—and that’s a real problem, at least in the showings of contemporary work.

I hear you. In the moderation, we need to strike a balance between cost (of time) and value. It takes only a few seconds to identify Futura, but pinning down the specific version can quickly eat up several minutes and more, per case, and often it’s not possible at all. There will always be some level of vagueness.

For many classic designs, we maintain separate entries, e.g. you can find Monotype Baskerville, Linotype Baskerville, Baskerville Old Face, Stempel’s Original-Baskerville Antiqua, Storm’s Baskerville Original, Fountain’s Baskerville 1757, Libre Baskerville, etc. What we can’t easily specify goes into the generic Baskerville bin. When you can identify a specific version in a Use, please drop a comment and we will happily assign it.