Have a seat and listen to my story of a man who had too many typefaces.

It began when he was a young design student and he purchased a copy of Photoshop 3 and a copy of Illustrator 5 and to his delight, they both came with fonts. A lot of fonts. And this began his hunger for typefaces, cramming his Power Macintosh 7200 full with as many freeware and shareware fonts he could find. He was so excited because he had seemingly limitless access to typefaces for just about any kind of design job.

As the years passed he carried these typefaces with him to different employers, used them for freelance design work, and was able to afford a few expensive typefaces that he really liked. The typefaces lived on floppy disks, zip disks, CDs, firewire hard drives, USB hard drives, firewire 800 hard drives, and internal storage devices of all kinds. So many Arks carried the mass of type he had collected.

But the truth was, he only used a small fraction of the full collection of type. While he knew he had several versions of the typeface Hobo, as well as a few knockoffs: he couldn’t bring himself to use it because it was hideous. He found himself with a pile of type that he could no longer wade through. The good typefaces were buried in a mass of over 11,000 duplicates, knock-offs, missing files, and altogether sucky excuses for typography.

So our now middle-aged designer spent two weeks sorting, trashing, weeding through and condensing the heap that he had carried for so long. He tossed copies of Lullaby, Pinwheel, Kool Ding, and Lord Haw Haw. Waded through duplicates of Helvetica Neue, Helvetica New, Helvetica New New, and New Helvetica. When he came to an Open Type Font he kissed it and patted it on the head, and he cursed True Types and archaic fonts that no longer worked and deposited them in File 13.

It was an arduous process, but he had so much type that he could no longer find what he wanted. And when the job was complete, he was exhausted, pleased, and bewildered that he had so many typefaces that were crap. He was finally free, and his hard drive felt lighter. The burden was lifted, and when he went to design a poster for an event that needed a modern feeling typeface that was friendly but hearkened of the 1930′s, he knew where to find it.

So friends, please learn from this designer that because you can get the typeface, doesn’t mean you should. Ponder your future and how heavy a pack you wish to carry on the journey ahead before you go to dafont.com and download a butt load of handwriting fonts just because you can. Consider how many times you’ll use that condensed, rounded, extra light, extra wide, oblique, small caps, expert version of Helvetica Neue before you buy. Saying “no” today will save you from hours of wasted time sorting through the heap of a collection gone mad.

There’s always been a debate over how to correctly choose type for a particular design job. There’s the school of thought that there are just a few decent typefaces and you should use those because they’re clear, legible, and bulletproof. Then there are those who feel that the typeface should “color” the words with its style. These designers argue that the typeface’s look helps communicate the message that its carrying. Recently I was talking to my dog and to my baby daughter and in doing so, the arguement that how you say something is as important as what you’re saying, supporting the “choose the typeface that looks like the communication” side.

Obviously, neither dogs nor one year-olds understand much vocabulary. They have no idea what you’re saying so tone is all you’ve got. More often that I’d like, my dachshund will get into my trash can and will dump a bunch of trash everywhere in the process. My tone alone is enough for him to know how I feel about seeing gum wrappers, used tissues and Netflix adhesive strips all over the studio. Heck, I could recite Shakespearean sonnets and use a disappointed tone and he’d know how I felt. What I say isn’t as important as how I say it. He gets the message… my tone is enough.

It goes the same way with people (and most notably babies), they can tell if you’re happy or not. As a child develops vocabulary their understanding of the nuances of the words and the shades of meaning develops, but early on you really don’t have much to work with. As a parent you communicate in megathemes: what you did makes me happy, what you did makes me sad, what you’re doing makes me wish I had never procreated (okay, a bit harsh). The tone you use is key in communicating these things. I’m curious if the teenage years will bring back these “I’m not listening to what you’re saying but I get the gist” days. I hope not.

Thinking about these instances reminded me of the typography debate and shed some light on my own thoughts about type selection. I’ve always been one to choose type that I feel is clear and legible but also feels like the content that’s being communicated. If it’s western, I choose western. If it’s modern, I choose modern. At the core of it all, the words may be the content of what you’re saying but the typeface you choose is the tone. As a communicator I feel it’s important to use impactful imagery and verbiage to share a message in the most successful way possible. Paying attention to the “tone” of that message via apporpriate typography choices is a big part of it. And by placing importance on choosing the right type, the message will be communicated more clearly.

My dogs and my kids said so.

My wife and I stayed at NYLO last weekend for a local getaway. We had both been wanting to check out the hotel for its overt styling and obvious attention to design detail.

NYLO is a fascinating concept: it’s a hotel that’s inexpensive ($79 a night when we stayed) but still has a unique style that attracts guests because of it’s panache. While I wouldn’t recommend NYLO for those seeking luxury or a quiet getaway, I will say that the consistent branding in their materials was fun to explore.

NYLO is four letters. Well, so are the words “shhh” and “hair” and “soap” all of which find their way into the black square motifs on the hotel’s paper items. It’s a simple but fun way to continue the brand of NYLO onto other pieces at the hotel. I found myself looking for more four-letter words to see what they may have come up with next.

Of the brand and hotel they’ve created I can only say:

N – I – C – E

So, just what type are you?

Pentagram has an excellent (and very fun) site that addresses “What Type are You?”. As a lover of type and a fan of Pentagram’s work, the site is a fun “analysis” of your personality and then what typeface you are. For what it’s worth, I don’t agree with their findings on what type I am though I agree that I am a slab serif.

Check it out at http://pentagram.com/what-type-are-you/.