Why typography matters
Posted by Peter Blaiwas on Thu, Jun 30, 2011
Today I would like to recommend an excellent book I came across recently: Typography for Lawyers: Essential Tools for Polished and Persuasive Documents, by Matthew Butterick.
I was struck by its precision. Even the title elegantly clues us in about how much we can learn from this book and (for me, anyway) how much potential it offers for applying its information far beyond just the legal profession. It fills a simple need that has gone without remedy for so long, and yet somehow no one noticed its absence. I expect that is the nature of brilliant ideas—we wish we'd thought of it—and written it—first.
As one might expect, the book is designed and produced impeccably. It is a wonderful reminder of how clear and instructive a well-designed reference book can be.
Typography for Lawyers rightly has received several excellent reviews in posts throughout the typographic blogosphere. It made me realize that it's possible to divide every person's reading material into two broad categories—what they want to read and what they have to read. To my mind, legal documents are the epitome of the have-to-read. While it may contain life-altering information we must understand—isn't that why we are warned repeatedly to "read the fine print"?—often it is expressed through such convoluted syntax and presented in a manner so mind-numbingly repetitive as to seem intended to obfuscate.
Bringing clarity back to what might otherwise become a data morass reminds me that the term text (as noun, not verb) once all but demanded an accompanying adjective—instructions, contract, dialog, poetry, etc.—to clarify its intent. Such modifiers, in turn, suggested how specific typographic conventions associated with it should look.
As text morphs inexorably into content that meanders from page to screen to tablet to mobile device, how much meaning is being ignored or lost when attention to its presentation is abandoned in favor of generic displays that accommodate the widest range of media?