Is it just me or...?

Nick Job's picture

Is it just me or is it harder to get recognition and credit in life for designing a sans serif face than a serif face?

Are serif faces just more beautiful and thus better received?

There are lots of revivals that get great plaudits (maybe rightly so because of the craft and graft that went into their creation - some may consider that it's just copying and not a whole lot else). But at the end of the piece, the typeface is very similar (albeit maybe better executed in some cases, with an occasional twist) to what has gone before.

Now suppose a designer posts a sans serif face for critique that is similar to what's already out there, the level of interest wanes and criticism is intensified even though the differences are no more marked than those of a 'revival'.

I guess what I'm saying is that and serif faces generally and revivalist faces in particular have it easy when it comes to critique and I'm not sure why...? Seems unfair. Anyone care to venture any thoughts on this injustice or have I completely imagined that it exists?

paragraph's picture

I (seriously) believe that designing sans-serifs is a little easier/more manageable, that's why I never tried a serif. Perhaps this subjective difficulty explains your observation. So, it's not just you, for better or worse, it's me too ...

eliason's picture

Just a theory: more beginning type designers start out doing a sans face (myself among them), so that side of things is more crowded with amateur work? I wonder what the threads-per-year numbers are for the sans critique forum vs. the serif critique forum are.

Karen Cheng: "Initially, sans serif letters seem easier to construct than their serif counterparts. However, the novice type designer quickly learns that serifs actually provide a visual margin for error. Without decorative distraction, even small mistakes in proportion, color or balance become obvious. As always, elegant simplicity requires the greatest effort. When there are only a few elements, the quality of each element (and their precise placement in a composition) must be flawless."

Syndicate content Syndicate content