During my seven-year run as a magazine editor, I fell in love with the look and lore of typefaces: the graceful serifed fonts, with their subtle visual curls and cues, contrasted against the blocky honesty of sans-serifed fonts. I loved writing text and then swapping among fonts, just to see what the typeface would add to the content. While I had a brief infatuation with the calligraphic fonts and some of the ultra-moderns, I always kept coming back to the old standards: Helvetica, Courier, Palatino, Bodoni. They were safe, unobtrusive, trustworthy.
The Boston Globe is picking candidates based on the typography of their logos. “If we were to predict the results based on typography and design,” say the editors, “we would pick McCain and Obama.”
Obama’s type is contemporary, fresh, very polished and professional. The serifs are sharp and pointed; clean pen strokes evoke a well-pressed Armani suit… This typography is young and cool. Clearly not the old standards of years past.
And poor Hillary?
The Hillary type palette is far from fresh and colorful; it is begging for legitimacy instead of demanding respect. It projects recycled establishment. The type has a tired feeling, as if the ink has been soaking into the page too long.
(Why, I wondered, with the other candidates making such good use of their last names in their logos, would Hillary use only her first name — Oh, wait a minute. Yeah, right.)
While the Globe editors had mixed feelings on Romney’s look (good use of caps, but a weak symbol), they ended with a flourish on McCain:
McCain uses type that is a perfect compromise between a sans and a serif, what type geeks call a “flared sans.” Not quite sans and not quite serif, sort of in between, moderate, not too far in either direction… The military star centered and shadowed is a not-so-subtle touch. And McCain just says “President,” as if to say he’s already been elected. Everything about this logo says you can buy a car from this man.
I disagree. McCain’s logo bores the crap out of me. It’s old and stodgy and more black than blue, and it’s probably the reason why he won Florida — you could easily see it at 500 yards, with or without your bifocals. Based on the typeface, I’d probably go for Obama.