“Designing type is to interpret a preexisting system — to work within a well-defined set of restrictions.”
Sibylle Hagmann, on the factors that determine the design of a typeface. MyFonts Creative Characters Interview: http://www.myfonts.com/newsletters/cc/201304.html
“Typography is a servant-the servant of thought & language to which it gives visible existence.”
Herb Lubalin: American Graphic Designer 1918-81 (in Eye Magazine, 83, p. 51).
“It has become apparent to me that doing calligraphy makes you a better type designer, and doing type design makes you a better calligrapher.”
Seb Lester, I Love Typography
“Why is it that when describing typography, the Latins think of food, whilst the Anglo-Saxons think of authority?”
Erik Spiekermann, on the arbitrary choice of typographic terms in different languages. Rhyme & Reason: A Typographic Novel, p. 103.
“When these giant extended families are further mutated by electronic re-shaping, we end up with typefaces which are to typography what kidney-shaped tables and brass edging were to interior design and architecture during the 1950s.”
Erik Spiekermann, on the Computers’ ability to interpolate. Rhyme & Reason: A Typographic Novel, p. 115.
P. S.: I don’t think he was referring to super families like Thesis, as much as he was attacking automatic creation systems like Metafont? Or should I say Meatafont… Sorry, although couldn’t resist this typographic pun, I detected a faint criticism to the creation of more than eight weights per face. Manually, or automatically. And I have to agree.