I’ve been reflecting a lot lately.
With 9/11 at ten years this weekend, I’ve not only re-thought about that unfortunate event, but the last ten years of my life. I was working at Goochland High School – the new one opened just weeks prior – and was in a new position. Having the freedom to not have a class – we were struggling to get Internet, news, and our TV hadn’t yet been hooked up properly. Phone calls came in, and news reports weren’t terribly satisfying about what was going on. I had a friend living in New York City who lived among the chaos.
I realize that I’ve put a lot into my professional life over these ten years. While I’d be lying to state that I never took time to rest, have fun, or follow non-professional passion, my immersion in technology has taken a huge chunk of my energy. My own health of late is the root cause for my reflective process; chemical changes bring back previous memories and experiences, and this reflection has been interesting and hopefully educational (for me).
I’ve learned so much about teaching and learning over these ten years, too. Which isn’t something I ever aspired to be an expert at… I entered college focused on just a few things. Using tools to help improve the educational process wasn’t’ one of the things on my radar. Yet, the technology piece has always been in my life.
From Odyssey 2 by Magnavox, to TI-99 4/A home computer by Texas Instruments, to the Apple //e, the Apple Macintosh Plus, the Macintosh IIsi, the Power Macintosh 7500, and around 2001, the PowerMac G4 tower… I’ve been “computing” for a long time.
One of the things I’ve taken deep interest in since the early Mac days is typography and publishing. I remember with relish the time I visited my friend Lucas’ two uncles in California. One had a copy of Adobe Illustrator 88 that he let us copy (via floppy disk). That box was so damn gorgeous, Botticelli’s Venus wrapped around it, the numbers “88″ on one face to another, the box itself oozed design. I am not sure it was the actual latest version (this was 1992, I believe), and I think the one we began getting into at home was Illustrator 3. We’d seen Display PostScript attending the NeXT World conference in San Francisco the same trip. It was an influential time for me (likely for him too). And yes, Adobe was known too for their creation of fonts.
Among their most successful designers is Robert Slimbach, a name I’ve known for years. I just recently re-discovered his Brioso font, a most delicious Italian Renaissance style script. It was far more ambitious than Poetica, which is “too perfect” in some regards as a typeface. There’s enough variation built-into Brioso to, when used sparingly, fool someone into believing it may not be digital. Either way, I had a great 30 minutes examining Adobe’s 2003 specimen PDF (linked above).
It caused a flashback for me to college. My roommate my first two years of college was a computer geek too. He too took an interest in my fascination with fonts. One day he came in with some discs. “Some kid upstairs has some good fonts… check these out…”
Evidently, they were copies made from the infamous Adobe Font Folio. The mega-CD-ROM that had every Adobe Typeface on it. It was the holy grail, before independent boundaries began selling their own fonts. Back in 92-94, you only had some big names making fonts available in PostScript format, then of course, as TrueType came on the scene with Windows95, the Internet helped create a new venue for all types of font vendors to emerge profitable.
Yet, today even, the admiration and collection of fonts tends to be centered around folks who do type/design for a living. I still get great pleasure from using fonts that people who notice, say, “Hey, what font is that? Do I have that on my computer?”
“No, it’s not a default font…”
“Oh… it’s really nice.”
“Isn’t it?”
Can you imagine? All types of people you have nothing in common with, starting up intelligent, intellectual conversations about the art of letterforms. Okay, not all types of people. They were few and far between “common.” But after the secret pleasure of knowing I own a font someone else does not, the feeling suddenly fleets as I re-consider the competitive stance I first have taken. “Maybe I ought to develop this conversation, this is someone who has an eye for detail!”
I hardly have time today to get lost in the world of new and curious fonts like I used to. That’s why I actually treasure getting e-mails from the font vendors now — introducing new specimens and designers. There is life after Slimbach. But nothing was as sweet as discovering this digital art on my own, with special friends, in my youth.
Nothing quite beats sharing your passion for something with peers that share your fascination.