Cafe-ligraphy
We generally have little use for our jobs, except for the fact that they provide us space and time to construct quality posts for you, dear reader. Also, their paychecks allow us to pay rent and buy cute shoes. Other than that, we'd rather be at home watching CSI or What Not To Wear or playing Rockband. On second thought, jobs do have benefits: free laser printing and free coffee. It's really sort of sad that these perks are the pinnacle of office work in America--and that only one of them is an official perk. After all, workplace coffee is pretty mediocre, at best. On the other hand, it's free. Nothing is more symbolic of the post-industrial economy's lassitude and flaccidity than the zealous sense of entitlement to free psychoactive drugs, as well as the ability to print out cheesy e-mail memes, that most of us office drones possess.
You can imagine our shock, then, the other day when the workplace tubes brought news that both the printer and the coffee maker were down. Out of the resulting chain of follow-up responses, the idea of a combined printer and coffee maker jumped out. This got us to thinking about the new typography that such a device would demand. We've been to Leavenworth, after all, and had our appetites whetted for fine typefaces. So these developments gave us the opportunity to pause and percolate upon some comparisons between type styles and coffee styles:
Courier Au Lait: You might think that it's light and namby-pamby, what with its plentiful, fixed-width whitespace. Oh, it's so charming and old-fashioned and harmless. Beware! It packs a punch behind its deceptive lightness. Courier will fuck you up with its bureaucratic seriousness. For good reasons, it was the State Department's official font until January 2004. Like drip with cream, it unpretentiously rules the office realm and fuels worldwide bureaucracy. Its wide, generous serifs drill their words and sentences directly into your brain. Were we granted one superpower, it would be the ability to speak in Courier.
Coopercino: We're not big cappuccino drinkers ourselves. When we do drink it, it is usually a sip or two that we mooch from someone else; we can only take its texture in small quantities. Similarly, we wouldn't dare write an entire article in Cooper Black. Traditionally, cappuccino was a breakfast beverage. And just as breakfast is the header for your day, Cooper is best for headers and titles. Cooper Black was invented in the sexy 1920s and that, like the drink, takes us back to the delicious Art Deco days of ex-pats in European cafes. We imagine Gertrude Stein drunk on the rich texture of life and Hemingway fattened by the weight of experience. In either case, we imagine them shipping crates of illicit art and exotic artifacts, all labeled in Cooper Black.
Helveticano: An economic and lightweight sans-serif, Helvetica goes down easily. It is entirely about content delivery. In beverage form, caffeine is delivered innocuously without bothering with taste. Oddly, all you taste is the temperature. In written form, the font smoothly pours down your visual gullet without letting its form get in the way. You get the meaning without distraction. The typeface is fairly neutral--fitting that the font's name is Latin for Swiss[typophile]. Additionally, it is polite, which is why the Canadian government uses it on their official marks. Like the One World Government, Helvetica is colourless, odorless, and ostensibly benign. Yet this seemingly innocuous typeface is also dangerously ubiquitous, homogenizing, and hegemonic.
Mocha Lucida: How does one make a mocha? Do you start with chocolate syrup or cocoa powder? Would you like whipped cream on that? Dusting of cinnamon or cocoa? Neither? Marshmallows? an abomination? *shrug* So many variants in the Lucida family as well: Is it a serif or sans serif? A script as well!? Wait, wait, it has symbols, too! So many variations; each delicious one is worth a try.
Palatteno: the default for writers with taste. It takes the regular serif and stretches the proportions in a most sexy way. It is not ostentatious yet entirely notable. It is classic but not stodgy. Most importantly, it is curvy and bodacious. Want something just a tad more sophisticated than drip, yet elegantly uncomplicated and with plenty of flavor of its own? Want something that builds elegantly, amply, and proportionally on bare, seriffed espresso? Choose Palatino.
Times New Starbucks: The most tedious and overbearing typeface in the world. Less readable and fearsome than Courier, it is nearly ubiquitous and standard. It is the *yawn* default; it is extra-medium. It is the passive voice of typefaces. Appropriate for corporate memos, passive-aggressive authoritarian edicts, and obfuscatory scientific prose, you can't really go wrong with Times New Roman. On the other hand, it won't really impress, either. One sure way to make certain that your resume goes from inbox to trash in 1.7 seconds is to set it in this typeface.
and last but not least, the much maligned Comic Sanka. 'Nuff sed.
Image courtesy of SlightlyNorth; Seattlest Flickr Pool
