"If you remember the shape of your spoon at lunch, it has to be the wrong shape. The spoon and the letter are tools; one to take food from the bowl, the other to take information off the page... When it is a good design, the reader has to feel comfortable because the letter is both banal and beautiful."
Keynote Speech/Type90
Adrian Frutiger
Typographer, Designer of Univers Font (pictured below)
Adrian Frutiger, the type designer who created Univers in the 1950's, said this in a speech. It's an odd way of looking at type but it seems fitting coming from the creator of Univers (pictured above), which is a particularly simple and unimposing typeface. I've heard of other typographers saying things like good typography makes reading the type effortless but I have to wonder if Frutiger takes it too far. I don't think that good typography is forgettable typography. In some cases it is; if you need a type that clearly conveys a message and is meant to do nothing more than get the information across, then sure, the typographic design doesn't have to be anything special. But, what if the typographic design was so unique and cool that it was what made you stop and read the information and it's the element that made you remember the information later? I think that's the best kind of typography.
I think that what Frutiger describes as "good typography" is like white paint on walls; white paint gets the work done, the walls are all one color, but it's not memorable and it's nothing special. What's special is the Sistine Chapel, that's how you paint a wall. Frutiger says that type is a tool, which it is, but he sells typography far too short. Maybe it's a reflection of the limit of his talents but I don't think his assessment is an accurate judgement of what typography should be or could be. Typography can be more than a tool, it can be an art it just takes the right designer to do it. Apparently, Frutiger is not that designer.
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