See Hear Speak of the Design Week

Here’s what I’ve been checking out this week:

I think W is my favorite!

Oh, I do love the look of these!

What’s the symbol for….oh, here it is! Thanks, AIGA!

The Dropclock will look sweet on our music computer!

What are you looking at? Leave a note in the comments. To see past See Hear Speak links, click here.

Cezanne: the new Comic Sans?

On the way home from a work-related event the other night, a non-designer friend of mine referenced an article that had been in the Valley News over the weekend, about typeface designers. I hadn’t read the article, but always ready to have a conversation about design, we started talking about fonts. He said that learning about how they design fonts, the intricacy of serifs and curves, was really interesting. I shared with him that one of the fun things about being a design-dork is pointing out what font they used on a sign, or in commercials…being married to a designer, my husband and I have spent 14+ years playing this game. We talked about the websites that are devoted to which fonts are used in different pop-culture items, and my own personal chase to figure out what font they use on LOST when they are subtitling Sun and Jin. Our conversation turned to over-used fonts. Having done design work for his department, and early on shaking my head at their use of Comic Sans, he knew about the ‘Ban Comic Sans‘ movement. I told him about my new personal distaste for Cezanne, which I’ve seen on everything from chocolate bar wrappers to “signed” documents on TV, to signage, to book jackets…you get the picture. After our chat, I thought I would grab a sample of Cezanne used in some pop-culture reference and leave it on his desk, proof of my rant. The next day in my home mailbox was the latest J.Jill catalog and there was Cezanne on page 2! The next day our new issue of Entertainment Weekly arrives, and on the inside front cover is an ad for Pioneer TVs, and at the top of the page, Cezanne spelling out the tag line. You can see it here on their website too. There seems to be no end to where and how people will use Cezanne.

What is with this recent over-use of Cezanne? My studio owns Cezanne, we bought it from P22 a number of years ago, along with the sketches of the artist Cezanne’s work. Here’s what they have to say about the font:

Created for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, celebrates the work of influential French artist Paul Cézanne. P22’s Cezanne font allows you to beautify your documents with a faithful rendition of the artist’s handwriting, while Cezanne Sketches recreates a variety of imagery from the artist’s work.

Why the rampant use of Cezanne? Is it because it’s an inexpensive ‘handwritten look’ option? It can be purchased for $19.99 online, and is available through non-font websites such as Papersource. P22 has even released a Pro version that adds more alternatives and is done in the Open Type format. Note they even point out that this font is ubiquitous.

Is it laziness on our part, the designers making font choices, that can be blamed for this Paris Hilton-like omnipresence of Cezanne everywhere we turn. Are we slacking in our research, not taking the time to find a more appropriate font, or not convincing our clients to branch out, pay for something different? Or is it that Cezanne is the best, most versatile font of all time? I’m thinking that’s not it.

So I put forward these 2 requests:
Type face designers: please design us more fonts that look handwritten, that are readable, that we’d embrace for use on our packaging, our posters, and our TV shows. Designers: please search out great fonts, designed by great type designers, and support those designers. Purchase your fonts legally, and use them wisely. And do your research. Google almost any font and you’ll find a million places to buy them, and then a million bits of information about them, bits like: Cezanne Pro was designed by James Grieshaber. He’s also designed a number of other font’s with character, some of which I also own. No offense, James, but your Cezanne has just gotten too popular for it’s own good.

I’m not sure I’m ready to launch an internet-style ban on Cezanne, I myself have used it in the past on Chamber Singers posters so I concede that it has it’s place, but I think I’m ready to ban it from my own font library, maybe from use in my studio. And I’m not asking you to stop using it, just use it mindfully, appropriately, and explore your other options. There are a lot of great type designers out there designing some great fonts.

The next time they show a legal document on C.S.I. that has been ’signed’ using Cezanne, join this design-dork in a full-blown yell at the TV, and at the person responsible for choosing that font, assuming we wouldn’t know better. Design-dorks unite!

- Sara Morin

Have other examples of overused fonts? Love Cezanne and are ready to counter my claim? Share your thoughts in the comments section!