Great post on the process behind Garcon Grotesque

[signswi]

Garcon Grotesque is a contemporary take on the dreaded Copperplate that some of you may be aware of. It has potential for use in our industry and this is an interesting rundown of the design process behind it.

http://ilovetypography.com/2012/02/26/garcon-grotesque-fonts/

 

[bob]

Garcon Grotesque is a contemporary take on the dreaded Copperplate that some of you may be aware of. It has potential for use in our industry and this is an interesting rundown of the design process behind it.

http://ilovetypography.com/2012/02/26/garcon-grotesque-fonts/

Unfortunately Garcon Grotesque, like it's ancestor Copperplate Gothic, is as ugly as a ba$tard cat and especially hideous when made sufficiently large as to bring the gratuitous serifs into focus. Every time I see Copperplate used larger than maybe 12 point, I have to stifle a gag reflex and realize that I'm viewing the work of a typographic illiterate.

There once was a reason for Copperplate as a passable imitation for hand engraved type in small point sizes. There is no reason for Garcon Grotesque other than to stroke the designer's ego.

 

[signswi]

No one is making you use it, go paint a barn or whatever it is you do with your time. There are legit uses for a font such as this. I sometimes wish I had seen the rants you must have launched into when typography was being deconstructed in the 90s.

 

[CanuckSigns]

it's bob's way or the highway, the sooner you realize this, the sooner you can learn to take what he says with a grain of salt

 

[bob]

No one is making you use it...

Rest assured that there is no power on this planet capable of forcing me to use it.

...go paint a barn or whatever it is you do with your time...

I have menials that see to such things

There are legit uses for a font such as this...

Certainly. But whacking it out on a sign isn't one of them.

...I sometimes wish I had seen the rants you must have launched into when typography was being deconstructed in the 90s...

Ah yes, when the typographical Philistines decided that whatever they did to brutalize type was somehow correct merely because they could do it. A most annoying blip on the typographic continuum created when the notion of 'desktop publishing' came into vogue and everyone thought that they were competent type setters. They were not and they mercifully disappeared into the mists.

These specimens were the dust beneath my wheels and not worthy of my venom.

 

[signswi]

Sort of except the names that really drove the movement are now mostly partners in marketing firms doing huge revenue numbers. Lots of excuses on the low end but those who drove the movement knew what they were doing.

I suppose Duchamp, Braque, et al are dust beneath your wheels too. All are insignificant in the face of the great "bob".

I get your point about using something like Garcon Grotesque inappropriately and agree there but I'd rather assume those who know how to use type appropriately will do so and may appreciate the link. Those that won't, there's no reason to waste time nor breath on.