A treatise on Fonts

I've decided to write a little bit about my healthy obsession with fonts/type. I say healthy because if my career as a lounge singer doesn't pan out, then my education as a graphic designer (which, please God, will be completed in 2007) will have to kick in as my source of income. As a designer I am faced (ha ha, pun) with bazoodlians of layout and type treatments. Not something I can avoid, if I wanted to. How many firms would hire someone who says their specialty is creating layouts that feature no type! Very handy for the magazine industry no? I can just picture the meeting with the client...

Client: "So, our headline for the article is going to be-"
Snobby Designer: "Wait, pause, reflect. Did my artistically attuned auditory organs actually process the word...headline?"
C: "Well yes, this is a magazine spread we've got here and it features an article on llama breeding, it's 2000 words, so I hope you can-"
SD: "Do you mean, I shudder, I faint...type???"
C: "....that is the traditionally accepted format for articles yes."
SD: "I'm afraid you've got the wrong trained monkey here Mr. Corporate America! All you capitalistic suits think about is Headline Headline Headline! Well I've got a HEADLINE for you, I am no long for hire! I do not work with type! Fonts are an illusion, merely bastardized shapes that we've been brainwashed to accept as communication! The only true fonts have been destroyed by thousands of years of materialistic retardation! You will be receiving my bill for this meaningless waste of my intellectual aptitude, in sanskrit!" *storms artistically from room*
C: Well, I guess we'll just have to use Papyrus!
SD (from beyond door): NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Well, that was fun. I've been thinking (and now I digress from my proposed post topic) that it would be funny/scary to have a show about art students. There would be drama, tears, naked people, and plenty of crazy people. All of which are essential elements of most successful shows these days (cf. Desperate Housewives). "hey, great blog, if you like Desperate Housewives..." I mean honestly, it could be four seasons, each season representing one year. Naturally Foundations would be the most traumatic because the poor kids undergo maniacal torture at the cruel hands of their three studio class instructors. It could follow the adventures of a select group of kids who go through the art program. One might be double majoring in Printmaking and Gender Studies (and thus the most insane of the group), another could be a Straighter (illustrator) who is secretly fond of Hello Kitty, another could be a Graphie (graphic design) whose obsession with fonts and type causes her to be banned from the GR area theaters. Oh, how fun would it be? Come on, who would watch it? Hands? Ahah! I knew it, ratings would soar! Especially if we threw in a life drawing course in the second year. So, who wants to help me produce? I'll need a director too, and a few stars, preferably unknowns since they're cheaper and I can only afford to pay in ramen noodles. "Hi!!! Awesome blog! If you like ramen noodles go to dehydrateyourselfin10weeks.com!!!"

But back to fonts: A lot of people go through life without even realizing that there are people (people?! GODS! uh, in the non-blasphemous sense of the word, if there is one, which I hope) who create these fonts by which the world is able to communicate! It's awesome! Empowering! Designers create mass communication! Scary...But seriously, take Gill Sans for example, did you know that Eric Gill was a sex offender? Betcha didn't. Did you know that that font of all fonts, the standard serif truetype font on all computers, the god of paper fonts...Times New Roman, was created by the Times in the 30s and was originally called "Times' Roman" and became "Times New Roman" in the 80s when people digitized it and created "Truetype" fonts instead of Postscripts... uh, I bet you DIDN'T...

Anyways, I'll cut myself short because I'm 3 minutes behind my schedule and I'm sure normal people have stopped reading by now anyways. And holy heifer I can sure be loquacious!

Various occurences in my day to day life (sounds ghastly no?)

Mellow greetings yookie dookie! The quote above is one of many many funny teacher sayings that I have immortalized in my notebooks. Oftentimes, instead of writing down important parts of lectures like the three different forms of female circumcision, I find myself capturing unique and personally amusing things that my teachers and sometime fellow classmates say(although that's mostly given up, in Philosophy last year a girl looked at my notes and gave me a funny look because I'd just written down something she'd just said...awkward and probably creepy to her). Someday I think I'll compile my collection, I've been doing this for oh, 6 years of college now. Some of the more amusing have found their way into my vernacular sayings such as my community college psychology teacher's "As the Hawaiian says..." series. Oh yes, series. He had a plethera of endings to that beginning, my favorite of which being "love me love my dog." I also like to just say "as the Hawaiian says" and come up with my own conclusion. Yes, I am very easily amused.

(speaking of which, I just figured out that I can

change the color of my text and the alignment....sweetness itself

one small gripe...I HATE all the fonts in the list!)

This blogging is providing me with some easy amusement in what would otherwise be a 4.5 hour break spent doing...homework? No, that didn't sound appealing to me either. Although I did do one tiny smidgeon of work for Graphics. I have four hours today abnormally. On alternating thursdays I'm home by 4:30 and 8:30 (women's group every other week).

Uh, oh wow, I just got completely distracted because I realized I hadn't checked my boyfriends blog in weeks. Quite amusing. Wish I could figure out how to link to his, oh wait here goes... http://republicofdcous.blogspot.com maybe that worked! Although, I'm sure all the people who read my blog are also readers of his. Except for the random computers who check for keywords like PRINTER or BUSINESS CARD and send me helpful "human" messages like "great blog, check out printermania.com if you like printers!" Hey, let's see if this is one of their keywords: NOSE HAIR TRIMMER, better yet PORTABLE WIRELESS ELECTRIC NOSE HAIR TRIMMER, perhaps I'll get a comment "great blog, ur so funny! lol! if you like portable wireless electric nose hair trimmers you should go here nosefolliclemanagement.com."

But where was I in my narrative? Oh yes, I'm here until 8:30 on this particular non-women's group thursday because I'm giving two young gals rides home! Which also means I'm going home. Hey, side note, Trebuchet's lowercase L's look a lot like Meta's, interesting. Yes, total freakhead. So now I have only 1 hour and 23 minutes to go. At some point I need to go to the bathroom again. Maybe I'll work out a schedule, yes yes, be organized. It seemed to help my scriptures teacher today as she attempted to list the topics she wanted to cover. Hmm, I think we covered about 2 of 10. Wow, 20% topic coverage, that's a marked improvement from previous classes where we end up discussing Buddhist asceticism instead of the Dhammapada's cultural impact. Meh, who cares. It's all asian to me. ("hi! great blog! if you like asians..."

Proposed Agenda for One Hour and Twenty One Minutes:
7:09-7:45===> keep posting on my blog
7:45-8:00===> check other peoples/relatives blogs and post accordingly
8:00-8:20===> mindlessly peruse IMDB in an attempt to fill my overstuffed brain with more useless cinematic trivia.
8:20-8:24===> walk to Calder parking lot (technically lot N, AKA the far reaches of nowhere, poor art students)
8:24-8:27===> remove all of my crap from back seat and throw into trunk, put all disgusting trash items into nearly empty "trash bag" and perform other car cleansing acts so as to make my vehicle capable of supporting human life for at least the two hour drive to Ann Arbor (gasp! location disclosed!!!)
8:27-8:29===> drive to dungeon dorm parking lot and wait excitedly and unsuspiciously for Rachel and Christina to emerge.
8:30===> depart GVSU with charges and transport them successfully to their respective destinations. Failure is not an option! Neither is sleeping on the road! Employ all means necessary to keep myself awake! This includes loud music, air conditioning, excited conversations about BBC dramas with the girls and perhaps if absolutely necessary, a caffeine stop for a 32 ounce mountain dew. Which would also mean a pee stop about 45 minutes following that 32 ounce fix.

So, I'll try to stick to that schedule and we'll see how well I do.

Funny blogs

Ok, I was trying (but not succeeding very well) to catch up on my blog reading for my grandma (dad's mom, down in mexico) and my aunt (dad's sister, in chicago). So I decided that I'll do a little promoting for them here, since my click through rate is phenomenally high. At any rate, I find them to be very amusing and well written blogs.

Ima's: http://mexicanreport.blogspot.com great accounts of their life as missionaries in a town called Orizaba in Mexico.

Aunt: http://summarilyoverruled.typepad.com what can I say? she's just downright funny.

So there you have it, two more blogs to add to your ever growing list. And hey, kudos for me posting three times in the same day! Amazing what a little homework avoidance can do for your freetime!