{"id":1847,"date":"2008-01-09T06:53:53","date_gmt":"2008-01-09T11:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/hero-with-a-thousand-typefaces\/"},"modified":"2008-01-09T06:55:04","modified_gmt":"2008-01-09T11:55:04","slug":"hero-with-a-thousand-typefaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/hero-with-a-thousand-typefaces","title":{"rendered":"Hero with a Thousand Typefaces"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A book that didn&#8217;t make my &#8220;best\/worst\/weirdest&#8221; list from 2007 was Michael Bierut&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1568986998?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1568986998\">79 Short Essays on Design<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=1568986998\" style=\"border: medium none  ! important; margin: 0px ! important\" border=\"0\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" \/>. I adored it but couldn&#8217;t come up with a decent joke award for it. Looking back, I should&#8217;ve gone with &#8220;Most fonts used in a good cause,&#8221; since every essay is set in a different font, to great effect.<\/p>\n<p>Virginia Postrel <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dynamist.com\/weblog\/archives\/002692.html\" target=\"_blank\">writes about the profusion of fonts<\/a> and includes a neat <a href=\"http:\/\/link.brightcove.com\/services\/link\/bcpid711933027\/bctid1366496264\" target=\"_blank\">8-minute video interview with Mr. Bierut<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Now if you&#8217;ll excuse me, I need to get back to laying out my magazine. Which uses Palatino for body copy, Helvetica Black for headlines, Gill Sans for author\/contributor copy, and Univers 55 for sidebars.<\/p>\n<p>(Oh, and Mr. Bierut has a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.designobserver.com\/archives\/031066.html\" target=\"_blank\">new essay up on Design Observer<\/a>, but I haven&#8217;t read it yet.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A book that didn&#8217;t make my &#8220;best\/worst\/weirdest&#8221; list from 2007 was Michael Bierut&#8217;s 79 Short Essays on Design. I adored it but couldn&#8217;t come up with a decent joke award for it. Looking back, I should&#8217;ve gone with &#8220;Most fonts used in a good cause,&#8221; since every essay is set in a different font, to &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/hero-with-a-thousand-typefaces\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Hero with a Thousand Typefaces&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-tN","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17812,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-662-rian-hughes","url_meta":{"origin":1847,"position":0},"title":"Episode 662 &#8211; Rian Hughes","author":"Gil","date":"November 4, 2025","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 662: Rian Hughes \"I'm never bored. I'm very lucky because I get up in the morning and I'm full of the possibilities of what I can do that day. And I'm very, very lucky because what I do seems to have some kind of audience.\" Multi-hyphenate Rian\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Art&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/hughes2025comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/hughes2025comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/hughes2025comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/hughes2025comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/hughes2025comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1219,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/pray-for-change","url_meta":{"origin":1847,"position":1},"title":"Pray for change","author":"Gil","date":"November 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes, dear readers, simpler is better. During my week away from the office, I spent a bunch of time working on rebuilding\/redesigning this blog. Midway through the process, it occurred to me that this involved three tasks: Learning how the WordPress database system runs the site Learning how Cascading Style\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16175,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-546-rian-hughes","url_meta":{"origin":1847,"position":2},"title":"Episode 546 &#8211; Rian Hughes","author":"Gil","date":"July 12, 2023","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 546: Rian Hughes \"The word 'graphic' means explicit, and graphic design at its best has that straightforward, punchy, explicit aspect to it. That's the kind of bold design that appeals to me.\" Writer, graphic designer, typographer, illustrator, comics writer\/artist, and photographer Rian Hughes rejoins the show to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Architecture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/hughes2023.jpg?fit=1200%2C714&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/hughes2023.jpg?fit=1200%2C714&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/hughes2023.jpg?fit=1200%2C714&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/hughes2023.jpg?fit=1200%2C714&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/hughes2023.jpg?fit=1200%2C714&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1542,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-june-8-2007","url_meta":{"origin":1847,"position":3},"title":"Unrequired Reading: June 8, 2007","author":"Gil","date":"June 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We're off to Louisiana for the weekend. I won't have a chance to get to New Orleans while we're there, so instead of beads, have some links! Boston brings back Derek Lowe! * * * National Design Awards article! Yay! With a slideshow! * * * This is not going\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Business&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1464,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/design-show","url_meta":{"origin":1847,"position":4},"title":"Design Show!","author":"Gil","date":"April 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Milan Design Fair started this week. 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