The Big Picture Of Graphic Design
One of my biggest pet peeves of design today, is the obsession over meaningless details in graphic design. There is this way of looking at design only with a “magnifying glass” point of view, causing some to miss the point a design is trying to make, or the “big picture”. The big picture of graphic design is made up of concepts, ideas, messages, and the connection it makes to the audience — the aesthetics might be a part of that too. Moreover, the big picture is the only thing that matters to non-designers.
As an example, I don’t find it useful to adjust kerning to the fraction of a pixel or praise the quality of texture when used, more or less, as decoration. I find this magnifying glass perspective most though, when talking about font selection.
To be specific, it’s about Gotham. A beautifully well-constructed geometric sans-serif font that has become one of the most popular fonts in the world since 2008. Some are quick to point it out in design as if they’ve uncovered a dirty secret, or roll their eyes in snarky comments — “Not Gotham again!”. It’s like they’re making a point to the un-originality of a piece, but all the while completely missing the real meaning of the design.
Some seem to feel good about not using Gotham in their work and instead use a clone like Avenier, Brandon Grotesque, Standard CT, Museo, Proxima Nova, etc. This misses the big picture because the general public can’t tell the difference between any of these Gotham clones. If all of these fonts have the same “personality”, which I argue they do, then the selection does not matter at all. Especially, if you’re just typing a company name out without any alteration to it, as is very trendy with logos now. It’s all the same.
And I think that is more concerning than using a single font too much. Replacing Gotham with a clone isn’t bringing anything new to the table the way some think it is. If you’re using any font the same way as everyone else, then you have nothing to feel good about as a Gotham-rebel designer and certainly nothing to complain about when others are using Gotham the same way. The audience can’t see the difference. So, why give a shit?
More high quality fonts exist today than in Massimo Vignelli’s heyday, but I feel what he said about fonts still rings true: “There are not many good fonts”. Because, for each good one that someone makes, there’s probably 10 shit ones on dafont.com.
I love Gotham, and it is my favorite font. I use it because that’s the one I like based on it’s aesthetics and flexibility (it’s a very large family, complete with condensed versions). I have a handful of other fonts of the same category, but when I need a geometric sans, I just use my favorite. No need to waste any more time unless the project really calls for something different. The difference in one letter and another probably isn’t going to change much if all the other letters look the same.
Instead of thinking about what font you will use on a project, think about how you will use it and how the font feels. If you’re doing a wordmark logo, how can you make it unique and memorable? If there’s an idea there that connects and does all the things a logo should do, then it doesn’t matter what font you used to do it.
