Fonts

I am noticing an increasingly alarming trend which falls in direct opposition of my concepts of branding and font identification. Some background:

First: I believe that fonts are dramatically important. They are an essential accessory and means of expression. They can convey all sorts of important and eye-opening leanings in a person both professionally and personally. For example: as a grant writer, I have recently realized the deeper and reactive importance of serifs.

Second: I believe that consistency in fonts is important within a single work. I am not saying you have to limit your font choices to one (although that is preferable) but should you choose to mix it up your motivation behind that choice should be evident, readable and utilitarian. Because really, when you're trying to convey knowledge, what is more important?? I know I may have some font-consistency opponents out there but I am getting more and more vehement on the topic so I suggest you rally and deliver your opposing thoughts soon.

So, to get to the meat here: In much television and film, I have noticed a high and inappropriate level of attention being played to fonts that identify locations and places, the most laughable being that awful new show starring Pacey, "Fringe" and the most recent being the new James Bond " Quantum of Solace."

In Fringe, the fonts float in ridiculous ways, in ridiculous places and interact subtly and ridiculously with the locations they are identifying. It is hugely distracting and clearly a strange and misplaced allocation of creativity. It's like they have a whole team dedicated to font selection/placement/interaction/size which is insane when it's such a bad show and clearly needs creative work in other, more critical areas. It got to a point (and granted my household only made it all the way through one episode) where we were MUCH more excited about the next opportunity to spot the outrageous fonts and committed to their zany adventures than we were to the actual storyline and/or characters.

In Quantum of Solace, fonts are, again also used to identify setting and are nearly as distracting, irrelevant and ridiculous. Although Quantum of Solace is actually a good and fun movie which takes the pressure off the creative font choice team on having to carry the entire project. also, thankfully, the setting identification is much less prevalent than it is in Fringe.

Point: Hey, entertainment folk! Less creative energy expelled on font choices. It's real stupid. May I suggest identifying a signature font per project, make an executive decision about screen placement/size/color and then stick to it. It's better branding and, even more important, it will quell my wrath/ridicule!

off-topic FYI: the AMC movie theater in Tacoma (on Mildred) offers FOUR DOLLAR AM movies! They start showing films at 10am and, until noon, the shows only cost $4 a ticket. These are first run too! Neat! Cheap!

pots and pans

I was too excited to sleep and all the reports from the BBC, interviewing regular, incredibly excited and inspired americans was just too much for me to stay in bed anymore. It's so strange. I don't have high hopes for the obama administration, I am simply inspired by the movement of the people.

Americans have chosen to come together in one important respect: we will not be represented by people of questionable integrity and intellect motivated only by the interest of a few. And I know so much of this "change" is impressively powerful propaganda and spin but, goddamit, it was the right spin, the spin that I was looking for and clearly what the majority of americans were seeking. Obama has managed to harness the mistrust, the cynicism and suspicion of progressively-minded people and link it simply to a need for change and to himself as a catalyst, the first, on a national level, to crest the coming wave of new political leadership.

I don't believe that racism and bigotry and hate based on ignorance have been blasted from this country by electing a black president but it is heartening to hear so many people of different backgrounds and ethnicities sharing their own inspired and excited feelings regarding the significance of this change. I believe america is a country founded on opportunism, greed, dominance, and fierce and unyielding autonomy. None of these forces come together to foster any level of compassion or openmindedness but from it's inception, due to it's rampaging pace and growth, america has been in discussion with a strong and tempering force for reflection and compassion that at key moments has found footing and a voice, inciting change for the good of the people.

America's history has nurtured the debate between these two forces and for the first real time in my life, I feel that america is maturing: remembering this discussion, collectively leaning towards cooperation, towards community, striving towards some common ground where we can just begin to consider that we all may have more in common than not. I keep thinking on the words of the poem by Emma Lazarus, carved at the Statue of Liberty monument and I feel that today they ring a little truer:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"