Fonts

Even more unsolicited advice to young composers: if you use a computer engraving program, don't use the default text fonts.

Use of the out-of-the-box settings may be taken as a signal the composer is unengaged with the appearance of the score and those New Roman Times are very 1995, if you get my drift. Why not try, instead, to use fonts that visually complement the sensibilities of your music? If you have the skills, make — or have made for you — your own fonts, ideally for both text and notation. Composer-novelist-all-round talent Carter Scholz made a suite of text fonts based on calligraphic designs of Lou Harrison (they're available from Frog Peak Music). A font based on John Cage's best text calligraphy has been available for some time, as well (it's here; I believe, however, that some of the glyphs in the "extras" set are actually from drawings from Thoreau's Journal that were used by Cage in works). The scores of Karlheinz Stockhausen, from his own home-based publishing house, use both music and text fonts designed, to Stockhausen's specifications with the text based upon his own handwriting, by James Ingram. I believe that the Stockhausen Verlag uses Optima as its house titling font, another part of the distinctive look.

In my own scores, I'm slowly getting closer to a satisfactory default engraving style. For some time, I've had a font for titles which I like a lot (Cochin Archaic) and I've come round so far to the principle of distinguishing markings within the stave systems (lyrics, tempi, expressions, various devices; all items that require player interpretation) with a serif font from text external to the stave systems (information and instructions that are given rather than interpretable: names of instruments, measure numbers, clocktimings, the word "score", the copyright line) which is done sans serif. I will admit that, up to now, I've put these in out-of-the-box New Times Roman and Arial fonts, as placeholders for my dream fonts, but am finally settling on a pair of alternatives with which I will retrofit all of my scores. One of my next big projects will be tweaking my music notation fonts to get a set of symbols which are somewhat closer to my own manuscript style, but fonts are tricky to make and there's a lot of learning to be done before I get there.

Websites remain, however, the one ubiquitous media in which a choice of fonts is seriously limited. You might really want to have say, Palatino, but not everyone has a Palatino on their machine, so the CSS or HTML code will include a list of acceptable fonts in order of preference (for example: Palatino, Garamond, Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif, to steal from the style sheet of a prominent young composer-blogger). If you really want a particular font, you have to place the text in question in a graphic of some sort, and that can mean some bandwidth costs.

On the other hand, it can well be argued that fonts are unimportant, and as long as they don't get in the way of the information they are supposed to help communicate, they're just gilding the lilies and time spent on such details is time not used otherwise more wisely. But even with that argument, there are many big unknowns concerning the readability, clarity and efficiency of typefaces, a complex topic about which I have too little expertise, so any definitive statements about whether a particular type face helps or hinders score reading (or blog reading, for that matter) are probably premature. In the meantime, I enjoy the few gilded lilies that come my way as little tokens that someone cares...

Here are some related earlier posts: Tools, Handmade, Sins & Fibs, Drafting

Also this: anyone else seen Gary Hustwit's documentary film Helvetica? My least favorite typeface — that tail on the "R" really does it in for me — but still a film to watch. The money quote comes from designer David Carson: "Don't confuse legibility with communication".