2012/12/08

Fonts Don’t Kill People, People Kill Fonts

Da Goddess @ 04:50

My name is Da Goddess and I’m a fontaholic.

It’s true. That’s just part of who I am.

I have always loved fonts. I’ve always been obsessed with them. I can’t help it.

I remember the first time I had to create my own. 8th grade. Art class. It was tres cool. But it wasn’t my first font creation. Nope, that was much earlier. I always played around with the way my letters were formed, the spacing, their solidness or their hollowness. I loved that you could do anything and everything with letters.

All that aside, my point here is this: if you are a “graphic designer” and you include more than three font types in your design? I’m calling bullshit. Using more than three fonts is not a sign of talent; using more than three fonts is a sign of laziness and a sign that you simply own a “1,000 Great Fonts” disc. Using so many fonts doesn’t create more visual interest in a website or in a publication; it causes your eye to flit from font to font, never giving the eye a chance to take in what any of it says. A good designer allows the eye to rest and a rested eye can read, can appreciate.

Chances are, if you’re the type of designer who uses more than three fonts in a single project, you’re also the type of designer who is still very likely using design elements from the 80s. Again, I call bullshit. We do not need to see random geometric shapes peppering the background. And we don’t need to see them in neon colors, which you’re likely to throw about as well.

Obviously, something set me off. It was a professional organization’s newsletter. Completely assembled by an “experienced graphic designer”. Said designer does not even have their own website to display their handiwork or I’d send you there so you could point and giggle or shriek in horror. Said designer has another website, though, but I refuse to link to it since it’s so poorly designed (with all sorts of embedded players that start at the same time) it’ll crash even the hardiest of computers.

It frightens me to think someone somewhere is paying such a person good money for work that has not evolved since 1985.

It hurts my very soul (and my eyeballs) to see what said designer is doing to beautiful fonts. Can’t you see? You, you horrible “graphic designer”, are killing all that is good and holy with fonts. Please. Put us all out of our misery and step away from the computer and never, ever “design” anything again.

Design rule: you don’t use more than three fonts in a single project. You just don’t. Anymore than you would watch porn with your parents. Just as you don’t eat Ebola-infected bushmeat. There are rules, people, and the three font rule is a rule you just don’t break. Plain and simple.

5 Comments

  1. “Design rule: you don’t use more than three fonts in a single project.”

    For my taste, no more than two is optimum. Unless it’s a freaking circus poster readability is the thing.

    Comment by pamibe — 2012/12/08 @ 06:44

  2. I prefer a two font max, as well, but I will accept a third as long as it’s not Comic Sans or something similar. :lol:

    Circus posters actually show great restraint. They tend to limit their fonts to two. At least the ones I’ve seen.

    Comment by Da Goddess — 2012/12/08 @ 14:18

  3. Comic Sans is the Apex font. There can be only one.

    Comment by Cowboy Blob — 2012/12/09 @ 12:25

  4. […] What’s tragic about it, of course, is that it never should have happened in the first place: Using more than three fonts is not a sign of talent; using more than three fonts is a sign of laziness and a sign that you simply own a “1,000 Great Fonts” disc. Using so many fonts doesn’t create more visual interest in a website or in a publication; it causes your eye to flit from font to font, never giving the eye a chance to take in what any of it says. A good designer allows the eye to rest and a rested eye can read, can appreciate. […]

    Pingback by dustbury.com » The tragedy of the Fourth Font — 2012/12/09 @ 17:12

  5. Comic Sans isn’t bad, necessarily (unless you watch the video…), but it has no place in a professional organization’s newsletter.

    I feel vindicated, though, knowing there are others who share my disgust at over-fonting.

    Comment by Da Goddess — 2012/12/09 @ 20:12

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