![]() And among historical revivals, Adobe Garamond, the font that did more than any other to make digital type palatable to the design community (especially book desigers), is missing in action. From a cultural standpoint, Remedy (the answer to too much Helvetica) and Thesis (the largest type family to date) are among the no-shows. Rudolf Hell, URW, Bitstream, Adobe Systems and Apple. ![]() On the technological front, MoMA failed to include any fonts from the five companies that pioneered the digital revolution in type: Dr.-Ing. Using each of the museum’s four criteria, there are many other fonts that are not only equally worthy of inclusion but a number of which are more deserving‡. All twenty-three of these typefaces are worthy designs, but not all deserve the singular honor of being the first fonts collected by MoMA. ![]() This historical rationale embraces three groups of fonts: revivals of metal typefaces (ITC Galliard, HTF Didot, CC Big Caslon, Miller, Mercury, FF DIN and Interstate), revivals of past lettering (Mantinia and Gotham), and parodies (Dead History, Keedy Sans and Mason). These fonts are ushered into the modernist temple on the grounds that they “most inventively distill the essence of historical examples to give it new, contemporary life”. Finally, the new MoMA collection includes a number of fonts that bear no visual signs that they are digital or even that they were designed in the last forty years. These are fonts that were notable for their aesthetic experimentation. Other fonts were selected because they “visually reflect the time and place in which they were made.” Hence the inclusion of Template Gothic, Dead History, Keedy Sans, FF Blur, Mason, Meta and Walker - typefaces which exemplify the upheaval in the small world of type design (and the larger world of graphic design) in the 1990s. The press release continues, “We have tried to form a comprehensive collection of the most elegant solutions to typography design in the midst of the digital revolution….” Thus, some fonts qualify for inclusion on technological grounds: New Alphabet, Oakland (one of the inaugural bitmapped fonts by Zuzana Licko), Beowolf (the random font by LettError) and again, OCR-A and Verdana. In other words, some fonts were selected because they were designed to accomplish a specific typographic function: OCR-A for optical character readers, Bell Centennial for telephone directories, Verdana for computer screens, and Retina for stock listings. “We chose some of these typefaces because they are sublimely elegant responses to the issues of specific media,” it says. ![]() Scott Makela and Zuzana Licko, Emigre, 1990) Keedy Sans (Jeffery Keedy, Emigre, 1991) HTF Didot (Jonathan Hoefler, Hoefler Type Foundry, 1991) FF Blur (Neville Brody, FontShop, 1992) Mason (nèe Manson) (Jonathan Barnbrook, Emigre, 1992) Mantinia (Matthew Carter, Carter & Cone Type, 1993) Interstate (Tobias Frere-Jones, Font Bureau, 1993–1995) Big Caslon (Matthew Carter, Carter & Cone Type, 1994) FF DIN (Albert-Jan Pool, FontShop, 1995) Walker (Matthew Carter, Walker Art Center, 1995) Verdana (Matthew Carter, Microsoft, 1996) Mercury (Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones, Hoefler & Frere-Jones, 1996) Miller (Matthew Carter, Font Bureau, 1997) Retina (Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones, Hoefler Type Foundry, 1999) Gotham (Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones, Hoefler Type Foundry, 2000) According to the criteria outlined in the JanuMoMA press release, the chosen fonts fall into four groups: functional, technological, historical, and cultural/aesthetic. The roster of twenty-three inductees* into MoMA’s Font Hall of Fame includes: OCR-A (American Type Founders, 1966) New Alphabet (Wim Crouwel, 1967) Bell Centennial (Matthew Carter, Mergenthaler Linotype, 1976–1978) ITC Galliard (Matthew Carter, International Typeface Corporation, 1978) FF Meta (Erik Spiekermann, FontShop, 1984–1991) Oakland (Zuzana Licko, Emigre, 1985) FF Beowolf (Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum, FontShop, 1990) Template Gothic (Barry Deck, Emigre, 1990) Dead History (P. ![]() However, the feeling of elation quickly gave way to puzzlement over the specific fonts that were chosen and the multiple rationales proffered for their inclusion. The notion that a museum of art, especially one as august as MoMA, rather than a museum of history or technology had stooped to recognize type design as a culturally significant activity was thrilling. When the Museum of Modern Art decided, at the beginning of this year, to expand its purview and include typefaces among the artifacts of modern design it collects, it was a moment of celebration not only among the type designers whose works were selected but among all of us in the design community who care about type. ![]()
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