!VAR HAGENDOORN

Fine Print and Typography

This one is currently doing the rounds in graphic design circles. The new credit card legislation that passed the U.S. Senate on May 19, 2009 includes a section on the readibility of fine print. As it says in Sec. 14 of the bill:

SEC. 14. READABILITY REQUIREMENT.

Section 122 of the Truth in Lending Act (U.S.C. 1632) is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

"(d) Minimum Type-Size And Font Requirement For Credit Card Applications And Disclosures.—All written information, provisions, and terms in or on any application, solicitation, contract, or agreement for any credit card account under an open end consumer credit plan, and all written information included in or on any disclosure required under this chapter with respect to any such account, shall appear—

"(1) in not less than 12-point type; and

"(2) in any font other than a font which the Board has designated, in regulations under this section, as a font that inhibits readability.".

I was reminded of the donot mist akel egi bili tyfor comm un icati on gospel from the early nineties. The idea at the time was that form and content should go together, that form should reflect content or that ty pographicint erventio nswh ilemakingthete xtmoredifficulttore adactu allyenhancedtheme ssagebyincrea s i n gth eef fortneededtoreadit. Or something like that.

But the playfulness that had inspired all the experimentation with typography and page layout turned into dogma when it became obligatory to "do something" with the editorial or textual content. Some of the David Carson designed issues of Raygun were great and some issues of Emigre are highpoints in typography. But some texts simply have to be clearly legible and readable. I think Semiotext(e) Architecture (1992) is notorious for really crossing the line in that respect. You cannot have theoretical essays that are a struggle to read anyway laid out in such a way as to make them almost unreadable. Otherwise, instead of reading the text people will merely look at it.

Spaces for one thing actually evolved to make texts legible. Some Roman and medieval texts did not yet have spaces.

I admit that I have at times railed against the stupid, outrageous, silly, preposterous rules conceived by some block-headed, witless morons with no sense for aesthetics who have a large sign saying "vacant lot" written all over their bureaucratic minds, requiring the use of Arial Regular 12 pt and margins of a specified height and width and so on in all corporate documents at some of the institutions I have worked with. But, they do have a point.

In the picture, some of my favourite page spreads from Emigre. I wish one day Emigre would publish a best of collection with a selection of page spreads from all 69 issues. I mean, I'm pretty sure it would be up there alongside The End of Print as a design classic.