Whitman Display Italic looks good on screen!

[William Berkson]

Did Dwiggins distinguish readability and legibility? I always thought that the distinction goes back to the 30s, but I don't know.

[xtianhoff]

I believe he did when discussing Winchester, which would have been during the mid- to late-forties. I'm not betting the mortgage on it, though.

[eliason]

Did Dwiggins distinguish readability and legibility?

Back in this thread I quoted Dwiggins from 1947, suggesting the answer then would be no:

"A type face is good if it is easy to read. No concession that interferes with ease of reading may be made either to beauty of appearance or to mechanical felicity. Legibility is the basic law, the sine qua non."

[xtianhoff]

I'll see if I can find the quote/line of reasoning that I was thinking about. The above quote certainly makes it sound like he saw them as synonymous.

[kentlew]

Dan (BlueStreak) -- When asked what style I thought should be used here, I had originally thought one of the heavier condensed [newspaper headline] styles. I also thought maybe one of the heavier italics, which get funky and chunky (Cyrus called them "tasty"). But after that rich, chewy Beorcana, I thought in the end that something light and airy might be a nice change, and so I suggested the Light Italic.

Hrant -- I was being only half-serious (and taking you only half-seriously), thus the smiley. No worries.

Regarding WAD, I think I would agree with that he was very instinctive in his work. And at the same time, he was very thoughtful. I think his thinking tended to follow his instincts. He could indeed be very right in his instincts and at the same time amazingly off-base in some of his ideas. But that is part of being a great thinker.

Dwiggins was a complicated mix of thinking and feeling, contemporary urges and historical respect. He even makes fun of himself in this regard through his alter-ego, H. Püterschein. In the Caledonia specimen, in "Notes on the Designer" Dwiggins-as-Püterschein writes about Dwiggins-the-designer, protesting that he is not really very "modern" at all:

"He creates an illusion of machines. But his machines are a masquerade. There are men inside of them. [. . .] Dwiggins pretends to love steel. He deceives nobody who thinks steel. He deceives his friends -- Victorians like himself. He does not deceive me. . . . Dwiggins loves the forms of his youth -- split-rail fences, the dust of the road, shady farm-lanes, hills, clouds, sunshine, rain, a simple breed of semi-barbaric rural morons -- all the sentimental hogwash of the days when he was young."

He was a complicated and contradictory man.

[kentlew]

My goodness, seven more comments since I started my last post. I can't keep up with you guys.

Christian, I think it's overstating the case to say that Griffith "struggled to pull him back." WAD was always concerned about the commercial viability of what he did. That didn't stop him from experimenting at all. But he was also always saying to Griff -- You tell me if there's any value in continuing this, or just put it "in the attic" (as he would say).

Thing is, as evidenced by the Charter and Winchester examples you mentioned, he was always pulling things back out of the attic and dusting off pet ideas, revisiting them again and again. You know . . . so many ideas, so little time.

But hey, it's a good thing he didn't have to draw every size and style and cast everything all himself, right? Or it might have taken him four years to release one family too ;-)

-- K.

[xtianhoff]

Yeah, I made it sound like a continual struggle when it was occasional. Dwiggins could be very practical and also respected Griffith's opinions greatly.

My main point was that when we struggle to reconcile a man both instinctive and deliberate, it's not really THAT contradictory. His instincts led him to want to try out many things (some fairly outlandish) and he then experimented, displaying his deliberate and thoughtful nature. We can snort in derision at some ideas, but that's always the case looking at experimental pioneers of the past.

[kentlew]

Christian -- Agreed.

And I think it's fair to say that Griff respected both aspects of Dwiggins equally. He obviously admired WAD's talent and creative impulses. He also respected WAD's analyses and theories. He was often asking WAD's opinion about other faces in production or sending him articles to comment on.

He did not always agree with all of WAD's theories. (I'm thinking about the long debate regarding approaches to fitting that I alluded to in another thread.) And I think CHG undoubtedly felt that some of WAD's design experiments were pretty outlandish, being a pretty practical man himself. But clearly, he felt that there was great value in having someone relatively unfettered in the MLCo camp doing the equivalent of "R&D." In this regard, I think Griff deserves a lot of credit for being quite visionary.

-- K.

[Simon Robertson]

hi kent, just wanted to say whitman look great, well done!

[kentlew]

Thanks, sye. We got a little side-tracked with all the Dwiggins talk, eh?

BTW, since the Display is the linked featured face, folks might have missed that the original Whitman text family has also been expanded with several new weights, including a full range of italics that folks had been requesting.

-- K.

[dezcom]

"just wanted to say whitman look great"

Ya damn betcha, it does! :-)

ChrisL

[Simon Robertson]

kent, how does whitman perform in extended texts like books?

[hrant]

Better than on screen? (It's a wonderful font overall.)

hhp

[kentlew]

Simon -- You shouldn't take my word for it. I'm obviously biased. ;-) Ask someone like Will Powers; he's worked with Whitman in books.

Or better yet, judge for yourself. You can download my original Whitman PDF specimen, which has several bookish text showings in different sizes. You'll find a link here: http://www.kentlew.com/WhitmanOverview.html

(Note: the specimen is old and hasn't been updated to reflect any of the expanded styles.)

Also, on the In Use page, you can find a list of some of the books that I know have used Whitman. (And actually, I only designed one of these myself; although I did oversee development on a few others. ;-) If you can get your hands on any, then that will provide even more evidence for you to judge from.

-- Kent.

[Simon Robertson]

thanks kent, i'll do that.