“In the face of all these influences I find it impossible to make rules for myself. The longer I work as a designer, the less sure I am about my theories of design, for I know that I will have revised my theories by the time I have the next job to do. I’m not sure that I even have such a thing as a theory of design. I question what I once thought was good or corrupt and find myself doing things with type that I would have thought inexcusable a year ago. Times change more rapidly than ever. Perhaps book designers need to take a vow of design celibacy: avoid the temptations of typographic trendiness, work with one typeface, and be pure. But to hold rigidly to rules and theories blinds a designer to more creative and appropriate possibilities.”

-Richard Hendel, in On Book Design

This quote sums up the flux that I’m in in my stage of design education right now. I’m in a grey area where I don’t have a confident foundation to classically set type and at the same time I don’t think I have enough knowledge of type to branch out and do something experimental. It’s all well and great to do unique and inspiring work, like design blogs such as FormFiftyFive publish, but what’s the point of following a type (or design) trend if it has such a limited application? A mastery of classic type is a much broader skillset that can inform experimental applications where they are appropriate rather than trying to apply existing trends where they are not.

I continue to remind myself that there will always be time to get experimental and loud, but in order to do that successfully I need to master the tried and true methods of type.

Related posts:

1. ABC3D – Dynamic 3D Typography
2. Rainy Monday
3. Tiff Chang: Parsons Prodigy
4. Anatomy of a Typeface
5. Never Sleep: Graduating to Graphic Design Book Review