Since coming down from my 2009 holiday sugar-induced euphoria, I replayed the events over in my head to see if there was anything of note related to “design” (and I’m not talking about cake and cookie design). Well, here’s what I came up with … (drumroll) …
Bauhaus and Souvenir. That’s it.
Ok, I know you’re probably thinking that I need a shot of insulin, and you’re probably right. But let me explain…
First thing you need to know is that I’m a bit of a “font junkie”. So while shopping, looking at catalogs, browsing the web, and being hit with every piece of Christmas marketing you can think of, I noticed a couple of the typefaces of my younger days … namely ITC Bauhaus and ITC Souvenier. You know, those bubbly art-deco ‘universal’ fonts created early in the 1900’s and retooled in the 1970’s? Well, I (and every other designer I know) overused those two fonts in the 80’s — to the point that I swore them off and vowed to never use them again.
So over the holidays, when I saw Bauhaus on a T-shirt, I immediately blacked out and started violently shaking … it soon passed. But to be honest, after the twitching stopped, a warm and fuzzy feeling from my earlier days in design came back … and I wept. Ok… I didn’t actually weep, but I did feel warm and fuzzy. And I thought, “you know, actually that’s not that bad.” It was well done and worked. And I think that’s the point. It wasn’t used because it was the coolest one of the 50 fonts you had to choose from, but it was the right font to use for the application. Admit it … most of us font junkies find a cool new font, and then “force it” into our next design just because we like it and want to use it as soon as possible. Guilty.
So I’m adding them back into my arsenal. So consider yourself warned. Just like the mullet and camo pants (I saw them hanging in The Gap yesterday!), they’re baaaack. Can’t keep a good thing down, can you? Don’t be surprised if you see me drop Souvenir somewhere – I promise, it will be tastefully done.
Oh yeah, and my next prediction … you’ll start seeing parachute pants (or a knock-off of the style) by end of this year. When you see them, feel free to call me the fashion prophet.
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any more strange font uses lately? I almost used Copperplate the other day….
Nice … Copperplate is currently used by a client of ours … and it works fine. I’m dying to bring back Bodoni Poster … (http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/poster-bodoni/)
You are such a show-off ! The design of this blog is delicious and makes me jealous. I already knew that you were a fashion prophet….
I think we’ll always go back to using the old forgotten ones…..
personally, I’m hoping I don’t have a project come up anytime soon where it feels like Bauhaus would be a good fit. *shivers*
like i said, what goes around … And to prove my theory, as your child gets older, watch the “toys” that start becoming available … they will be the same ones (or variations of) the ones out when you were that age. they sure do know how to market to the parents …