Michael Bierut, Jessica Helfand|Audio
July 20, 2017
Episode 61: Font of Corruption?
What is it with Calibri and the not-so-sharp children of world leaders? Maryam Nawaz Sharif gave Pakistani investigators documents that may have been forged, and Donald Trump Jr., printed out some potentially incriminating emails. Michael calls Lucas de Groot’s Calibri a “well-designed font” yet:
Once you make your typeface the Microsoft default sans-serif, I think you are going get tarred with the brush that anything that easy to find is.
And Jessica says choosing a default typeface can give any document a “lazy, sloppy quality.”
Also mentioned this week, Jessica‘s favorite font as a teenager is Hobo, and Michael loves Cooper Black. Also:
- R. Eric Thomas, Elle, Here Are Some Petty, Embarrassing Observations on Trump, Jr.’s Emails
- David Fahrenthold, Washington Post, A Time magazine with Trump on the cover hangs in his golf clubs. It’s fake.
- Howard Kurtzon George W. Bush, John Kerry, and proportional spacing (2004)
- Allison Arieff, One Thing Silicon Valley Can’t Seem to Fix
- SPUR, Remaking the Corporate Campus
- Samuel Medina, Eero Saarinen’s Bell Labs, Now Devoid of Life
- Jon Gertner, The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
- Subway signage: Nancy Franklin retweets Amy Nicholson’s tweet
- Jarrett Fuller, The subway and glimpses of old New Yorks
- Amy Plitt, The forgotten history of the Upper East Side’s retro subway entrance
- Subway and the “sandwich artist”
- Jesse Thorn, The Turnaround
- The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, This Diagram Predicts What’s Next For Donald Trump Jr.
Subscribe to The Observatory on iTunes or your favorite podcast app, or follow Design Observer on Soundcloud.
Observed
View all
Observed
By Michael Bierut & Jessica Helfand
Related Posts
Design of Business | Business of Design
Lee Moreau|Audio
The Past, Present and Future of Design with Lee Moreau, DB|BD Season 12 Finale
Design As
Lee Moreau|Audio
Patrick Whitney on Designing for What’s Next | Design As Season Finale
Design As
Lee Moreau|Audio
Design As Creation | Design As Consumption
Design As
Lee Moreau|Audio
Design As Short | Design As Long
Related Posts
Design of Business | Business of Design
Lee Moreau|Audio
The Past, Present and Future of Design with Lee Moreau, DB|BD Season 12 Finale
Design As
Lee Moreau|Audio
Patrick Whitney on Designing for What’s Next | Design As Season Finale
Design As
Lee Moreau|Audio
Design As Creation | Design As Consumption
Design As
Lee Moreau|Audio
Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer and a former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Communications Arts and Eye magazines. A member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame, Helfand received her B.A. and her M.F.A. from Yale University where she has taught since 1994.