Goldman Sans?

The problem with Branding and bespoke typefaces is that the running text face is rarely the one that evokes the brand at all.  The display face that has some visual meat is the one that will be remembered, even if it is a bit lower on the readability scale! "See something say something" is not the same as READ something. There is a role for the graphics and semiotics that transcends reading words. There needs to be a graphic means to transfer the branding concept. Think of it like character acting, you have an image, a shtick that says you look like who you are trying to be--and that is not always a neat and tidy package. An investment bank opposed to a breakfast cereal food, a fashion house vs a plumbing supply firm.  You have to read the room, recognize the players and dress them to show themselves in the right light.

I am sorry, after 50 years of doing corporate identity design, or what is now called branding, I have in with too many meeting with "the suits" to know what they are about. There were a few like Bernham at Westinghouse who really worked with Paul Rand and let Rand do good work, but too many corporate types are thinking about getting their face and words in to push their own advancement rather than the best result for the company. Let the designers do their work.

That the typeface used as a corporate identity for Goldman Sachs might be a bit on the dull side is only reasonable. I only looked at this thread after seeing the other one about the New York Times article.

What struck me about the typeface, though, is that it looked very much like some other typeface that I remember seeing a lot. Even that isn't new. Life was just Times Roman with a small change, and a customized Caslon was made for a famous American college if I remember correctly.

Akwe, and Dalton Maag's own Calmetta, are somewhat similar, but I may have been thinking of something else.

Who can argue with something the New York Times found worthy of quoting?

Not being a professional type designer myself, I wouldn't feel myself qualified to assess Goldman Sans in such terms, even if it did give me a feeling of déjà vu... which name for a typeface is, of course, taken (the extended Unicode version of Bitstream Vera, known as DejaVu).

However, I think this raises a serious question. Corporate custom typefaces are one thing, typefaces designed for sale are another. In the latter case, one would expect that courage and imagination would be de rigeur, simply on the grounds that the only hope a new typeface has of attracting notice (and therefore sales) would be to stand out from the crowd and not be another me-too design.

But on the other hand, the many imitation typefaces made in the photocomposition era illustrate another factor at work: when a new typeface with an innovative feature becomes fashionable, everyone wants it... and the originating foundry charges a high price for its fonts, which naturally encourages lower-priced producers to make knock-offs, whether in the form of imitations of the complete design, or simply original designs which take inspiration from the new fashion landscape the specific new typeface has created.

And there also seems to be another factor at work here. Completely apart from any questions of the level of creativity on the part of typeface designers - that is, even if it were as high as ever - there are just so many new typefaces out there that it's hard to keep track of the worthwhile signal in the mass of noise. So the fact of creativity being harder to see may be creating an impression of their being less of it than is the case.