Being a historical society we sometimes get stuck in the past.
In fact, the title of this post might even be just that; stuck in the past. An article in the March edition of PMA Independent, a magazine for the independent publishing industry discussed what fonts, or more properly in modern lingo, typefaces, say about you and what you are writing.
While most people are familiar with Times New Roman and Arial from word processing programs and e-mails, we see different tyepfaces every day. Our book designer tends to stick with one typeface within the body of our books, although he is a bit secretive about which one it is. However, for our children’s books he often switches to something more appealing to the younger eye, and for Tatanka and the Lakota People he chose a typeface that he thought suited the style of the Lakota language and people.
Front covers are another matter entirely and it would seem that designers show far more likelihood to break the mold with typefaces there. Our recent Forgotten Lives features three different typefaces, which might sound a lot, but fits the “rule of thumb” for such things.
The point is, the next time you choose a font or typeface that is a little out of the ordinary, look at it with an appraising eye, and try to think what it says about you, or your work.
