Michael Bierut, “I Hate ITC Garamond”, for Design Observer back in 2004:
ITC Garamond was designed in 1975 by Tony Stan for the
International Typeface Corporation. Okay, let’s stop right there.
I’ll admit it: the single phrase “designed in 1975 by Tony Stan”
conjures up a entire world for me, a world of leisure suits,
harvest gold refrigerators, and “Fly, Robin, Fly” by Silver
Convention on the eight-track. A world where font designers were
called “Tony” instead of “Tobias” or “Zuzana.” Is that the trouble
with ITC Garamond? That it’s dated?Maybe. Typefaces seem to live in the world differently than other
designed objects. Take architecture, for example. As Paul
Goldberger writes in his new book on the rebuilding of lower
Manhattan, Up From Zero, “There are many phases to the
relationships we have with buildings, and almost invariably they
come around to acceptance.” Typefaces, on the other hand, seem to
work the other way: they are enthusiastically embraced on arrival,
and then they wear out their welcome. Yet there are fonts from the
disco era that have been successively revived by new generations.
Think of Pump, Aachen, or even Tony Stan’s own
American Typewriter. But not ITC Garamond.The most distinctive element of the typeface is its enormous
lower-case x-height. In theory this improves its legibility, but
only in the same way that dog poop’s creamy consistency in theory
should make it more edible.
I can’t explain how it is that I’ve never linked to this piece before.
