Citizen Journal Article Archive

“A MAN MAY TAKE TO DRINK,” Orwell wrote in Politics and the English Language, “because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language.”

That was one month and sixty years ago. Today the rout of English is finished. In print the professional classes make it thick as cold porridge and just as flavorful, and in common usage it is spoken with deliberate disregard for grammar as well as style. “It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish,” as Orwell explained, “but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”

The same is true, over half a century later, about fonts. Except today, the people picking our public fonts have a vested interest in general foolishness.

MUCH IN THE WAY that architecture is a reflection and embodiment of the psychology of a culture, the various fonts that appear most often in public print offer portraits of the aesthetic lurking inside them. A philosophy of fonts, reflective of how the printed word is deployed as deliberately as language in the shaping of culture, should be staked out at once. Beginning with a historical prologue that traces the development of script up to and beyond the invention of the printing press, it would be made clear that the triumph of computers and the internet represents a technological leap in the appearance of communicative text even more revolutionary than that of the printing press itself. Fonts—in their full range of possibility—have been thrown to the mob.

The digitization of information has already created dilemmas of truth and content in the publication of photographs. An editorial decision to alter the appearance of captured real-world images in order to communicate a desired meaning, not originally present, is troubling to us but inviting to those for whom the stakes are high enough to lie. It is not just inevitable: it has already happened. The imbroglios of yesteryear over manipulated pics of American troops in Iraq are already forgotten, but a primal notion that the physical shape of images shouldn't change to fit the agenda of their publishers lives on.

AND YET THE ALTERING OF FONTS strikes everyone as much more benign. The digital age has made a font for every mood no longer the province of the monastery or the tenth-grade art class. We all know which styles of lettering look “scary,” “technological,” “elegant,” “childish,” or “authoritative.” Half of the ugliness in a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power building, or a Federal agency in Washington, is the spare, squat, sans-serif font of the letters used to identify it. Contrast such a font with the fine, chiseled lines of, say, the Supreme Court or the Treasury. There one reads culture—skill wrought by the practiced human hand—with all the sophistication of shape and style that communicates an ennobled social message about aesthetic virtue.

What few recognize is that such value-signaling has gone beyond the realm of aesthetic appearances and into the arena of behavioral valuation itself. Just as the script of hand-copied Bibles in the Middle Ages clearly represented the “divine perfection” of its contents and values, so today have fonts become tools of cultural conditioning.

The still-accelerating decision by, say, restaurants—fast-food restaurants particularly, but now, increasingly, sit-down joints as well—to print their children’s menus or their titles (“Kidz Only,” etc.) in “kid-like,” zany fonts reflects a conscious and ultimately business-based determination that the presentation of products for children will be more profitable if that presentation is anchored by visual cues that communicate certain characteristics or psychologies. In the case of kids’ meals, the broad consensus is that children ought to be marketed to by visual cues that depart as much as possible from “adult” (i.e. “boring”) typographical styles. Uniform, consistent fonts executed with professional and aesthetically refined style are particularly unfashionable.

But wait. “Kid-like” fonts? “Boring” typefaces? What moral and cultural judgments about the nature of juvenility are impacted in those phrases? Inescapably tied up in the business judgment that children will be more likely to buy (or will be more successful in pestering their parents to buy) products marketed with zany or deliberately outrageous fonts (or misspellings) is a broader, psychologically informed norm that says children ought to be or are inherently zany and deliberately outrageous. In fact, the blurring of the line between profit-motive and social-missionary-motive makes clear that fonts may be deployed as subtextual social cues by those with an agenda aside from mere income. (Elsewhere, this drive is borne out by the analogous imposition of ideological, and otherwise needless, diversity directives from triumphant Human Resources departments to their own parent corporations.)

AS FAR AS “KID FONTS” GO, one can see that the new norm, conveyed by the font-choice version of “coloring outside the lines,” has been permitted—and encouraged—to extend itself into the actual physical behavior of the children themselves. Regularly, predictably, we are treated to the invasive spectacle of unmanaged children running rampant throughout indoor public places, ducking in and out of clothing racks, rolling about on the floor, and generally causing the low-grade sort of mayhem that makes most shopping centers crass and intolerable places to stroll through. This is not a phenomenon coded to class, either. For every grubby toddler pawing around on the carpets of a K-Mart, there’s a petulant little hellion knocking down neat rows of espresso bean chocolates at Starbucks, with an abdicated parent in arm’s reach, maxed out by the demands of a cell phone conversation.

Across race, class, and culture, whole communities of parents have no compunction about letting their children mishandle or slobber on products and items that will soon be touched and purchased by unsuspecting or defeatist customers; children are now often seated with impunity upon surfaces that in a bygone era would be widely understood as absolutely unacceptable places to be swabbed with anyone’s backside.

WITH A STRAIGHT FACE, then, we can say that a concerted effort to communicate dignity, restraint, and nobility to children and their parents through the use of artful, disciplined fonts in the promotion of children’s products would at least make a dent in an otherwise unfettered popular culture of fashionable disobedience and willful slovenliness. At the moment things do not look good on that count. Books by Bennett, Santorum, and Himmelfarb are well outweighed by the full force of popular culture, in print ads as well as television, and the point here isn’t to break children on discipline’s wheel.

But by the same token it may only be a matter of time before children raised on chat rooms, billboards, and music videos will lose the ability to write properly altogether, completing the eradication of ennobling, culturally demanding, fonts from public print. A culture of perpetual consumption has no reason to extend the ability to write beyond the marketing class. Courtesy of George Orwell, we already know that one needn’t be literate to know how to read—or to buy.

Replies: 37 Comments

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Posted by: gabrown@axionet.com">Graham Brown On Sunday, June 26th

James G. Poulos, thank you I haven't had such a good laugh in along time. Great to see such great leg pulling. It reminded me of the BBC report of the the spaghetti harvest. And who ever said we conservative can't have a laugh.

Posted by: reevesme@bellsouth.net">Jeffer On Sunday, June 26th

Scooter says he wants people to debate Cj's points on its merits. Very well.
CJ wrote:
"I, personally, love it when someone eloquently defends my desire to protect my personal freedom from the invasion of an increasingly idiotic consumer culture. I have a right to be literate. Freedom of "speech" does not equal a right of marketeers and people who buy hip-hip albums to impose their illiteracy on me."
I fully sympathize with your complaint about the things you have to deal with as an editor. But I would like to know how you think it is possible for anyone to "impose" illiteracy. As an adult who can read and write, you are responsible for your own level of literacy. You make it sound like someone is trying to deny you literacy. WTF?
("Literacy," of course, is a "right" not found in the Constitution, so be careful advocating such a right, because the "originalists" will Bork you to death over that one.)
You are under no obligation to participate in any aspect of the "idiotic consumer culture" you speak of, so this whole idea that
the illiterates of the world are "imposing" their miseducation on you sounds like an attempt at whipping up sympathy for your own victimization at the hands of idiots. I submit that no one can do this to you without your consent.
Try this on for size: Let me rephrase your complaint above slightly. "I have a right to be irreligious. Freedom of religion does not equal the right of evangelicals and people who think the earth was created in six days to impose their religiosity on me." Fair enough? Now note this:
http://www.bibleman.com/bibleman/home.jsp
Is this an example of "idiotic consumer culture"? I'd say so. But this in no way "imposes" religion on anyone. It's a marketplace choice. Do you need someone to "defend you" from this "invasion"? I didn't think so. Same with "crazy" fonts, bad spelling, and bad grammar. (BTW, you will note that Bibleman was featured at the Billy Graham Crusade in what was billed as a "Kidz gig". Note the spelling. Illiteracy and religion make a bad mix, don't you think?)
This website advertises itself as a "conservative" forum. Poulos' article could now become the "go-to" item for people who say "If you want to find out how conservatives think, just go read this. You won't believe your eyes."

Posted by: beef@balls.com">Joe Blow fron Idaho On Saturday, June 25th

"children are now often seated with impunity upon surfaces that in a bygone era would be widely understood as absolutely unacceptable places to be swabbed with anyone’s backside."
In this bygone era, children who behave like children where beaten on their "backside", correct?
I'm sure the authour would like to take "foolish" children across his knee and spank their bare asses 'till they cry, begging to be saved by god!
The authour probably also believes that children should, at birth, be instilled with a rigid sense of discipline and intelligence that prevents them from swabbing their asses on the property if elder men like himself.
Loosen up you stodgy old crank!

Posted by: Dan Savage On Friday, June 24th

Ha ha ha. He said "Santorum".

Posted by: temp@yahoo.com">CJ On Thursday, June 23rd

TM, et al. Have you seen some of the comments here? Can you only attack me based on my choice to emphasize (e.g., I, personally) that my opinion is personal, not a short-sighted (shall I say overly-simplified?) canned liberal response? Guess what? I'm a democrat. Guess what else? Some of these responses humiliate me. People are so quick to pick one sentence out of an argument and exaggerate it that they miss the argument completely. Take a minute to read the post. His point is worth considering--even with a subject as specific as fonts. Oh, the garbage we are happy to digest.

Posted by: quis On Wednesday, June 22nd

Is just me or is this whole article set in a blasphemous sans-serif font?

Posted by: reevesme@bellsouth.net">Jeffer On Wednesday, June 22nd

Been there, done that.
"The Hidden Persuaders"
by Vance Packard (1957 or thereabouts)
As an old Texas saying goes, "hand me some cockleburrs, Joe Bob." (Hint: it has to do with masturbation.)

Posted by: biff@falsename.net">Biff Hicks On Monday, June 20th

Comrades, we must also take our battle to the trademarks! Viz:
Quik (chocolate or strawberry)
Fantastik
Accujac
Kleenex
For our childrens' sake, we must be Nietzsche, not Goudy!

Posted by: mcclafferty@gmail.com">tm On Monday, June 20th

Scooter- I found CJ's post just a bit pedandict, and given it's opening sentence, incredibly ironic. Also, I can't discern any particular merit in CJ's post, a post that referred to those expressing views similar to mine as "simplists." Is that even a word?

Posted by: bill stender On Monday, June 20th

Having worked exclusively with letterforms for the past 24 years, painting them by hand and refining them by computer, studying the new faces, critiquing the ancient ones, imagining letters while sleeping and most importantly being filled with delight (or with dread) at the choices designers make in the public sphere, i would like to commisserate with Mr Poulos in his dismay at much of the current graphic landscape but also encourage him to direct his energy toward the commissioners of this ungraceful art. Namely, the pirates who man the helms of the corporate boardrooms who spend their days and nights imagining new ways to maximize their profits rather than the higher orders of human possibility.
How about an essay extolling the virtues of social health before corporate profit? or perhaps 300 words examining the pros and cons of slashing of school budgets while expanding multi-billiion dollar corporate subsidies? do not forget to question their leutenants, the distinguished members of the Congress and Executive who lie and distort routinely to advance their inelegant designs. Inelegant design choices are the reflection of an inelegant society built on exploitation and theft and perpetuated by the celebration of greed.
To rail against the graphic designers is like beating the slave who had the impertinance to point out that Master spilled his drink.

Posted by: scooter23@yahoo.com">scooter On Monday, June 20th

TM - "I, personally" isn't fantastic writing but why not debate CJ's point on its merits? Or can't you?

Posted by: tm On Monday, June 20th

I imagine, CJ, that in your outrage over reading so many liberal postings, your sentence beginning, "I, personally..." just slipped past your inner-editor. Isn't it a shame that your indignation falls flat because of your own inability to write?

Posted by: temp@yahoo.com">CJ On Monday, June 20th

I'm an editor. I have to read and manage the bastardization of the English language by college-educated people on a daily basis. Perhaps the liberals posting here are excited by the 6th grade language and "clever" misspellings that the advertising industry shoves down our throats. It's not freedom of speech that is being attacked here, simplists. I, personally, love it when someone eloquently defends my desire to protect my personal freedom from the invasion of an increasingly idiotic consumer culture. I have a right to be literate. Freedom of "speech" does not equal a right of marketeers and people who buy hip-hip albums to impose their illiteracy on me. Thank you, James, for your refined perspective.

Posted by: piercerobert@usa.net">Robert On Monday, June 20th

Didn't Mao have a chapter on decadent fonts in The Little Red Book?

Posted by: scooter23@yahoo.com">scooter On Monday, June 20th

It's good to see that civilized debate is alive and well amongst the left. I don't see one coherent response here. This is a stretch, I'd agree, and not a point I'd choose to make with the finite number of keystrokes God has given me. But it takes all types (no pun intended) and if you read this article and leap to "fascism"/"lunatic" without considering the point, you're wasting everyone's time. Sarcasm has its place, but so does reason, and this is a reasoned argument, a delicate one, and one worth noting. Fascism? Come on.

Posted by: jgirl@yahoo.com">Julia On Monday, June 20th

Is this for real????

Posted by: JRSofty On Monday, June 20th

Wow this article just goes to prove that even though you have the right to free speech you shouldn't always exercise that right.

Posted by: thisisunbelieveable@youguysarenuts.com">Samuel On Sunday, June 19th

"With a straight face?" Good Lord, this screed is one step away from an Onion editorial.

Posted by: Jay Electronica On Sunday, June 19th

thi has got to be THE MOST stagerringly idiotic typography argument posted on the web.

Posted by: you@are.it">What is Decadence? On Sunday, June 19th

I think that this article smacks of a sort of smug hypocrisy. What is decadece? I would say that the Bush clique is hyper-decadent, at least, like the ludicrously self-important 'emperors' who pompously presided over Rome's (highly deserved, at that point) DECLINE. Who else would kill thousands of innocent people just to preserve their high profits and easy money, attempting to justify obscenity after obscenity with ever more complex perversions of truth and justice, each one built upon the last, and each one increasingly more untrue, until one has to wonder, how can anyone still believe in THIS ugliness.
I can only feel sorry for the author, who is being used like a pawn by the worst pack of thieves ever to disgrace this nation's hallowed halls. This is an issue that transcends politics, one of honesty (or the lack of it) professionalism, and lack of simple common sense, masked by a conspiracy of lies and liars.
That is TRUE decadence and unfortunately this man does not recognize it because he is so wrapped up in his own self-rightgeous persecution complex.
To him, his way of life is under attack by 'enemies' and 'evildoers' and lacking the ability to actually improve his life situation because the real attackers are those he has mistakenly trusted as his leaders, and the real crime is their larceny against his future birthright, which is understandably terrifying in its inevitability, (unless more people like him wake up to how destructive they will be - have already been..) he has chosen to take refuge in the popular xenophobia and jingoism..
He's to be pitied, not vilified..
Seriously..
The kind of railing against 'decadent art' is what fascists do.. What they really should be railing against is the extreme right's war on the family, war on the middle class - who they see as 'pretenders' - Their goal is to dumb down and commoditize all skilled jobs until all high-paid workers are replaced by machines, 'expert systems', task-specific robots, and the like, in the final triumph of Taylorism.
Men as machines.. eventually, will no longer be necessary..except as consumers..
Will we at that point decide that a welfare state is preferable to genocide?
People like him are coming down on the side of the future genocide..which to them would just be 'the elimination of surplus people'.
Just FYI, technology moves fast, so its closer than you think..
"who would Jesus kill?"
The answer should not surprise anybody..
...NOBODY...

Posted by: PonyBoy On Sunday, June 19th

oui - I don't know how to put my thoughts about this into words... this should just go away... y... yyyyy..........
...
..
.

Posted by: C. D. Graham On Saturday, June 18th

This is probably the most ridiculous piece of typography related writing I have ever read. Mr. James G. Poulos clearly has no knowledge about the typography which he so
poignantly commented on.

Posted by: A. G. Rud On Saturday, June 18th

It is hilarious that Orwell's famous essay is used to lead in to supposed font misuse. Orwell was speaking about the precise use of language, and its abuse linked to totalitarianism (remember that word?).
I recently attended a SRO talk by a noted teacher on "avoiding PowerPoint coma." The speaker stated one should never use sans-serif fonts in PPTs. I disagree, and don't follow that bit of advice.

Posted by: justsayno@no.no">tired On Saturday, June 18th

Trebuchet MS melts my panties. I have 12 kids from 9 fathers. This is no laughing matter!

Posted by: PK On Saturday, June 18th

this is quite possibly the stupidest anti-aesthetic argument i've ever seen.
unfortunately, controlling language and typography is one that pops up in onservative regimes over and over. the nazis did, in fact, have a strong inetrest in a national typography. at first they advcated nothing but a blackletter form, indicating that was the truest german letterform. but the blackletters the nazis had commissioend were, in fact, impressionistic ripoffs, and technically incorrect versions of blackletters.
it's also notable that the bauhaus was advocating a removal of the blackletter from german writing. renner, the creator of futura, was pretty much driven from germany over this point. the nazis later did a complete about-face, deciding that blackletter was the decadent typography they shoulda been after in the first place.
also? to equate typography to an art for public use -- like architecture -- is utterly juvenile. typographic creation requires only skill and software. not public funding, nor space, nor public participation. at no point is the public forced to use typography they don't like. at no point are they forced to use typography they don't agree with. there is no agenda. you're imagining boogeymen where you'd like to see them.

Posted by: DrLaniac On Saturday, June 18th

Somebody warn Ray Larabie this guy's gonna sic a lynch mob on him!

Posted by: none@none.com">paul On Saturday, June 18th

Mr Poulos - you cannot possibly be serious. Of all the real issues out there you chose *this* one?
This is a non-issue. Will your next article be about decadent colors? Perhaps "Editing the Rainbow - correcting God's mistakes".
Give me a BREAK.

Posted by: nico On Saturday, June 18th

you have GOT to be kidding me. who gives a damn?

Posted by: pro typesetter On Saturday, June 18th

Please excuse the longish comment; this is my field of expertise, and I do tend to lecture about it at the drop of a hat. As someone who's been designing & typesetting printed materials since c. 1983, before the advent of easily-used electronic type, I can say with assurance that using type to help convey the message of its contents is nothing new.
I'm surprised the writer found this to be news, but perhaps my sanguinity stems from my familiarity with the field.
If someone wants to point to "decadent fonts," I wouldn't bring up "zany children's" fonts used on, say restaurant menus (What the heck does that mean? The fonts used in the Harry Potter books, which by the way were designed for the series [though one can find lookalikes made by fans, online]? Some of the T26 creative, grundge, or modern fonts? Or something more prosaic such as Marker Felt or Curlz?)
Using fonts/type to aid conveying the message of the text is one of the oldest forms of design known to man. But not always; sometimes the type (or calligraphic hand) was used because it was simply the way people wrote during a particular historical period. Why do the handwritten Bible copies or Books of Hours from the Middle Ages look like "divine perfection," according to the essay above? It was the Humanistic (or Miniscule, etc.) hand of the time -- it allowed the copyist to make as many pages as possible in the scriptorium and still be readable. It wasn't a deliberate choice to convey; it was handwriting. Nothing more, nothing less. Granted, it was deliberately good handwriting: it wasn't a laundry list the scribe was copying, after all. The more important the document, the more readable it needed to be. (Aside: try reading a Merovingian chancery script used for legal documents; these documents were not written to be read easily.)
Fonts/type are supposed to convey the message. Otherwise, the typographer has not done his/her job. Is it propoganda? Is it pushing a message? No more than the words being typeset are conveying their own message. All (well-written) words convey a message and are therefore "propoganda." It's the nature of communication. If it isn't aimed, then it's poorly written and poorly presented.
I can understand ranting against the overuse or misuse of grunge, "zany," or generally decorative fonts for, say, headlines on a children's restaurant menu. I rant about it daily. It was much, much worse at the advent of easy typesetting: the first Macs made it far too easy for any shlub to overuse, misuse, and generally abuse type/fonts. Remember "desktop-published" newsletters & books back in the 1980s? Egads. Up to 10 unmatched, badly typeset fonts per page. In huge, mismatched sizes. It was Type Abuse at its pinnacle of the 20th century.
Rather than calling out fonts that are "decadent," I am guessing that the essayist meant to rant against fonts that are ugly. And I couldn't agree more. Every little Mary Sue on the Web has created or used ugly, badly drawn "zany" fonts on their websites. And their fathers have lovingly reproduced the same mistake on their little cafe menus, thinking that was how to set type.
Maybe we should take away the ability to make and use ugly fonts. That would be legislation I could get behind.

Posted by: mister serious On Saturday, June 18th

You said:
But by the same token it may only be a matter of time before children raised on chat rooms, billboards, and music videos will lose the ability to write properly altogether, completing the eradication of ennobling, culturally demanding, fonts from public print.
PBS is the only commerce-free and decorum-oriented television station in America. How do you handle the dissonance?

Posted by: Planet B On Saturday, June 18th

The imbroglios of yesteryear over manipulated pics of American troops in Iraq are already forgotten...
What are you talking about? I had never heard of such an "imbroglio" so I did a google search and still have no idea what you're talking about. This "imbroglio" must be so forgotten that there's nothing on the internet about it.

Posted by: Andy Vance On Saturday, June 18th

Oh, come on, Billmon. You have to admit certain typefaces give you that "special feeling."

Posted by: Marc Lawrence On Saturday, June 18th

Ha, ha, ha.

Posted by: billmon On Saturday, June 18th

The case against decadent fonts???
Is that any thing like "decadent art"?
These guys had a problem with that, too:
http://www.ovationtv.com/artszone/programs/degenerate/before.html
If you conservatives want us to stop calling you fascists, why do you keep TALKING like fascists?

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