Reviewing other influences, Stephen shares stories of his parents’ travels, taste for good design and of the bits of culture and furniture incorporated into his home as a result. The influence of the mid-century modernist furniture stayed on as an influence. Also a great influence was Stephen’s early interest in Birding.

Birders and Font Geeks have a lot in common. Both are quite detail-focused, and always considerate of concepts such as classification, anatomy, and of course, identification. An additional experience early on was had working for the college newspaper, where Stephen came across an old FontBook and began marking up and correcting the printed annotations in the margins. He was later able to add his annotations to the next edition of the FontBook in his capacity at FontShop San Francisco.

We don’t think twice about the chairs we sit on unless something’s wrong. And when something’s wrong, we may not even have the ability to explain what’s wrong.
Stephen then guides us through a series of chairs in the context of type releases and collections. One may take a dogmatic approach such as Massimo Vignelli’s famous six typeface limit, but there are certainly reasons for more type designs, just as there are good reasons for more chair designs.

As type scholar Indra Kupferschmidt succinctly put it, “Customers have different applications, tastes, budgets and bottoms.”
Where to learn more about type and typography: Typographica and Fonts In Use both offer insight into great, new and old faces. And if you’re more interested in the chairs, check out Stephen’s other blog, the Mid-Century Modernist.

By David Sudweeks