Typophile - Famous Quotes from Type Designers - Comments

Talbot Baines Reed, author

will powers — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 10:51:05 -0700

Talbot Baines Reed, author of “A History of the Old English Letter Foundries,” wrote:

“Egotism has been and remains responsible for many defects of modern typography.”

Originally in “Ars Typographica,” winter 1920. Reprinted, with the title “Old and New Fashions in Typography,” in Heller & Meggs “Texts on Type.”

So, maybe he wasn’t a type designer. Still . . . . .

powers

“In the fields of

Wynnefield — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 13:19:35 -0700

“In the fields of Printing & Graphic Design, it is generally agreed that the poet in our midst is the type designer.”
— Noel Martin

Wynne Hunkler
Principal | Wynnefields Creative
Web Design & Visual Communications

well, I didn’t see this

russellm — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 19:36:55 -0700

well, I didn’t see this one yet:
“Legibility, in practice, amounts simply to what one is accustomed to”. Eric Gill

and another Gill (Dr. John):
“It is freely admitted that this “testing” is far from ideal and could even be described as anecdotal.”

He probably got the quote

Norbert Florendo — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 19:08:39 -0700

He probably got the quote from me during a drunken stupor at ATypI in the eighties ;^)

Doing a little digging I see

William Berkson — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:34:10 -0700

Doing a little digging I see that Steve Byers was on the board of the Type Directors Club fairly recently. You might contact him through them, and find out where he got the quote.

Steve Byers was a classmate

dezcom — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 16:39:58 -0700

Steve Byers was a classmate of mine at Carnegie Mellon in the mid 60s. He majored in Graphic Arts Management. He went on to a bright career as Norbert mentioned.

ChrisL

“This font didn’t take

fontplayer — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 15:14:35 -0700

“This font didn’t take much to make. About 30 hours altogether.” —Fred Nader, speaking of ’Miltown’, a font made from the Matrix movie title.

Thirty hours for a quick display font? Makes me wonder what kind of spread it took to make different kinds of fonts and font sets.

Steve Byers was one of the

Norbert Florendo — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:34:13 -0700

Steve Byers was one of the type development/marketing managers at Linotype, I think out of Hauppauge, NY during the mid-to-late eighties.

I did the same, and went for

Sofie B — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:32:28 -0700

I did the same, and went for a look at the Steve Byers article, in ‘The Art of Looking Sideways’ by Allan Fletcher.

The article itself is mostly a list of quotes on typography. The title of the article is ‘Typography is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters’ (with quotation marks), but with no reference to the origin of this specific quotation…

Googling, I see it in

William Berkson — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 12:40:03 -0700

Googling, I see it in several places attributed to “Steve Byers”, but I don’t know who that is. I looked in Tracy and then gave up. I can’t remember where I first read or heard it. Good luck, I’d like to know the source also.

I can’t seem to locate the

Sofie B — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 11:04:24 -0700

I can’t seem to locate the quote: “Typography is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters” in any of Tracy’s writings, can someone please help me with a title and a page number?

I’ve always heard that

Jackie T — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 05:00:53 -0700

I’ve always heard that quote as:
“The bad news is you are a ______-phile; the good news is it’s incurable.”

Fill in the hobby of your choice. Used as an opening line for bad speech makers... Normally the rest of the speech goes downhill from that point — along with the bad chicken dinner that goes with it.

THIS IS A PRINTING OFFICE

Renaissance Man — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 08:46:37 -0700

THIS IS
A PRINTING OFFICE

CROSSROADS OF CIVILISATION
REFUGE OF ALL THE ARTS
AGAINST THE RAVAGES OF TIME
ARMOURY OF FEARLESS TRUTH
AGAINST WHISPERING RUMOUR
INCESSANT TRUMPET OF TRADE

FROM THIS PLACE WORDS MAY FLY ABROAD
NOT TO PERISH ON WAVES OF SOUND
NOT TO VARY WITH THE WRITER’S HAND
BUT FIXED IN TIME HAVING BEEN VERIFIED IN PROOF
FRIEND YOU STAND ON SACRED GROUND
THIS IS A PRINTING OFFICE

Beatrice Warde (1932)

http://www.nenne.com/typography/bw3.html

Andi Emery

Florian Hardwig — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 08:16:22 -0700

Andi Emery said:
“Typomania is curable but not fatal. Unfortunately.”
— Erik Spiekermann, TypeCon2005

The Helvetica movie features a variation of that by Erik himself:
“I’m obviously a typomaniac—which is an incurable if not mortal disease.”
Aggravation?

I would rather get a massage

dezcom — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:30:04 -0700

I would rather get a massage than a message any day :-)
But I will take that lying down.

ChrisL

Famous Quotes from Type Designers

Miss Tiffany — Sat, 2 Jul 2005 08:07:12 -0700

Alright fellow Typophiles, what are your favorite quotes from famous type designers. Can’t tell you why, it is a surprise. However, we could also put these in the wiki. I’ll start:

“Anyone that would letterspace blackletter would steal sheep.” Frederic W. Goudy