It’s Saturday morning and my mom calls to me from another room. “Get off that darn machine!” I barely hear her over the sound of swiftly clicking keys, my fingers flying at seventy miles an hour. An unbitten piece of toast, hot nearly an hour ago, sits next to me. My eyes are possessed by a serious case of tunnel vision. On the screen sits a single letter “a”. It isn’t a photograph or the start of an essay. It’s my own letter, one that I’ve created meticulously from curves and points, one that will some day weave its way onto paper as part of my very own font.
I wouldn’t call myself a geek. The term is overused, synonymous with Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory and those who speak fluent Klingon. No, I am not a geek. I am a creator, and the computer is my instrument.
In the tenth grade, I fell in love with words. It wasn’t writing itself that interested me, but rather the delicate shape of each letter. Now, two years later, I am a self-confessed typophile, determined to identify the font on every website I visit, distracted by signage while walking down Fifth Avenue, ceaselessly frustrated by the ubiquity of Times New Roman. Blogger Patrick Barber has described typography as “a vein of material so rich enough to mine for a lifetime.” Over the years, I’ve mined for knowledge in books, magazines, and blogs, and have barely scratched the surface of letters. But this raw material is only as valuable as the goods it can produce; I’ve begun to design my own fonts in order to understand the intricacies and nuances of type. Armed with specialized software and countless concepts that have been forming in my mind, I’ve started to create. My laptop is the place where I turn sketches into pixels, static drawings into complex living systems.
Designing a typeface reminds me of assembling IKEA furniture. Embarrassingly enough, I get overly excited about both of them. Each requires a meticulous craftsmanship in order to reach its full potential. Place one screw improperly and your entire shelf could be off-kilter. Make your “t” a few pixels too tall and suddenly the flow of a word is disrupted. When done right, though, each is its own form of art. I’ve been drawn to typography in particular because of its utilitarian nature. Letters don’t exist solely to sit in a gallery before a flock of gaping connoisseurs. No, typography is for the masses, used everywhere each and every day so that it’s become largely unnoticed. It is the means by which I absorb the language of Dostoevsky, learn the intricacies of the Krebs cycle, and interact with my friends online. Type is not simply letters; it is the medium through which humanity is shared.
I am not a geek. I am a disciple of Johannes Gutenberg, a lover of letters. I am the kid who received Helvetica and the New York City Subway System under the Christmas tree last year and poured through its pages to absorb every last photograph. I am the kid who spent her birthday money on font-making software. I have ignited in myself an obsession with detail. I’ve remembered that type is worth nothing more than the words that it expresses. I’ve been resourceful and curious, passionate and inventive. I’ve stared at my computer screen with the focus of a surgeon performing open heart surgery. I’ve lost myself in the pixels and curves of a single letter. And every Saturday morning, fresh from a night of excited sleep, I’ve sat down to create.
Email me when Sophie Stadler publishes or recommends stories