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EXTRA BOLD ITALIC 60

DESIGN BY: KELLY CROMACK

GDES 1314.01
2011

E S S AY B Y: J E S S I C A H E L F A N D
SEMIBOLD 12

Sticks and Stones Can Break

My Bones but Print Can
Never Hurt Me:

SEMIBOLD 12

SEMIBOLD 60

a letter to Fiona on first reading

The End of Print

SEMIBOLD ITALIC 24

W I T H A P O L O G I E S T O F AY W E L D O N , J A N E A U S T E N , A N D D AV I D C A R S O N
SEMIBOLD 12

0123456789
0123456789
0123456789
0123456789 ab c d efgh ijk l m n o p q rs t u v w x y z
0123456789
0123456789
0123456789
0123456789

REGULAR 36

ITALIC 36

SEMIBOLD 36

SEMIBOLD ITALIC 36

BOLD 36

BOLD ITALIC 36

EXTRA BOLD 36

EXTRA BOLD ITALIC 36

REGULAR 36

SEMIBOLD ITALIC 12/14

REGULAR 12/14

And what is typography, you ask?

A good question.
Typography is letters (and numbers) and
why they look the way they do.

Sometimes letters are

21 March 2000

SEMIBOLD ITALIC 24

Dear Fiona:You are turning two in a

few weeks and I think its high time
you understood a thing or two about
graphic design. After all, you are part of
Generation ABC and what are ABCs,
after all, but typography?

BIG AND
LOUD
and sometimes letters are
small and quiet.

But the way they look whether

theyre pink or purple or
or small or quiet or noisy or happy
or scary or funny or weird, well,
thats something that comes
from typography.

big

CAPS BOLD 24/18

BOLD 24

ITALIC 8

ITALIC 8

Which is also called type.

Typography can make

words look good.
It can also make words
look bad.
REGULAR 12/12

Which is sometimes called print.

Which is a word that occasionally causes people
to wrinkle up their noses and describe a time
when it was customary to wear burlap shoes
and sit hunched over, by candlelight, scratching
painstakingly written messages to ones friends
and neighbors using quill pens.
REGULAR 8/10

ITALIC 24/30

This really happened, back in ancient times. Like back

when there were mummies and dinosaurs. Before television.
Like when Daddy was little.
SEMIBOLD ITALIC 16/18

Now heres the really confusing part. A lot of people say print is
SEMIBOLD 18/18
dead.
SEMIBOLD 18/18

Printing is what you do when you write letters one at a time, as

REGULAR 18/18
opposed to script, which is when you write letters so-that-theyconnect-to-each-other-like-this. Printing is also used to describe whatITALIC 18/18
happens when machines (called presses) get hold of all those
words, all that typography, and actually press the letters, together,
onto paper.

Flat and not moving.

Dead, like when we drive down our road and see a rabbit or a
woodchuck that didnt make it across in time?
The whole concept of roadkill is something I had hoped to put
off for a few years, but I think its important for us to get clear
about one thing.

Paper is a word that occasionally causes people to wrinkle up SEMIBOLD 18/18

their noses and describe a time when it was customary to wearREGULAR 18/18
burlap shoes and sit hunched over, by candlelight, scratching
painstakingly written messages to ones friends and neighbors
using quill pens.

This really happened, back in ancient times. Like back when there
were word processors and 8-track tapes. Before computers. Like
when Mommy was little.

REGULAR 18/18

Print isnt dead,

sweetheart.
Its just sleeping.
SEMIBOLD 48/36

SEMIBOLD ITALIC 18/18

So as you begin to learn

your ABCs, remember that your
mind is like a giant alarm clock that
wakes those letters up so that they
spell something, so that they mean
something, whether theyre on 1V or
in a book or scratched on the side of
a wall somewhere.
REGULAR 14/14

And while youre at it, remember that

S isnt the same as 5 and
I isnt the same as1.

1 L0V3 U
1 lOV3 U
I LOVE YOU
I LOVE YOU
SEMIBOLD ITALIC 48

SEMIBOLD 48

ITALIC 14/14

Remember that pictures may speak louder than

words, but that words speak volumes.
EXTRA BOLD 14/14

Remember that
Remember that anything
that looks cool probably
1 lOV3 U isnt the
wont look cool for
very long.
same as I LOVE YOU
even though it
Remember that very long
means, well, probably about
looks cool.
REGULAR 14/14

BOLD ITALIC 24/30

Remember that sometimes typography

can help you understand something or
react to something or feel a certain way
faster, but that it probably wont help
resolve conflicts between embittered
nations or advance your capacity for
reason or prevent you from getting bee
stings or tick bites or chicken pox.

a day-and-a-half.
ITALIC 14/18

REGULAR 14/14

Remember that spelling mistakes are celebrated in

email but not tolerated in literature.
Remember that
SEMIBOLD ITALIC 14/14
literature is made up
of stories that are
what they are because
someone wrote them
down, letter by letter,
Remember that this is why your father
word by word, intending
and I want you to learn your ABCs, in
for them to be read and
the order in which they were intended to
remembered and retold
be learned, even though you can, and will,
for years and years and
mix up the magnets on the refrigerator to
years to come.
proudly
spell words like HRLDGSNO and
REGULAR 14/14
WSIGEFOO and PSTWE1202GE.
ITALIC 14/14

S
SEMIBOLD 200

omeday when you read the work of

Gertrude Stein or look at

the work of
David Carson you
will make sense of such verbal and visual and
perceptual aberrations, but until then, my sweet
girl, remember that your

ABCs

are

what helps you to read, and reading is what

opens up your mind so that you can learn
SEMIBOLD 14/30

Turtles.
Communism. Particle
physics. Reading feeds your brain and
about anything you want.

SEMIBOLD 30/30

Goodnight
Moon is tomorrows Charlottes Web
is next years Elmer and the Dragon
and before you know it youll be reading Thomas
Hardy and Thomas Mann and
A. S. Byatt and V. S. Naipaul,
helps your mind to grow. So todays

just as your parents did, and our parents did and with
any luck, your children will. And even though we read
them printed on papcr and you will very likely read them
emblazoned on a screen, do you know what, Fiona? It
doesnt matter, because no matter what the typography
does (or doesnt do), and no matter what print is (or

words are just ideas

waiting to be read.

isnt),

EXTRA BOLD 30/30

And reading will never die.

Reading is your
ticket to the
world.

EXTRA BOLD ITALIC 72

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Jessica He
lfand

Jessica Hel
fand is a pa
rtner, with W
Connecticut
illiam Drent
. Their wor
tel, in Winte
k focuses on
and educatio
rhouse, a de
pu
blishing an
n and literac
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d
editorial de
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in Northwes
author of se
velopment;
ssica is curr
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veral books,
new media;
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in
a
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cultural inst
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has also wri
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the Whee
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(2
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002) publis
edia and V
and: Amer
Hewitt Nat
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ican Moder
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nist (Wiute
n Museum,
ctural Press
rh
University
ouse, 1998
Walker Art
. She
School of Jo
). She has
Center, Col
urnalism an
lectured at
umbia
Institute. S
d the Nethe
Cooperhe received
rlands Des
her B.A. in
ign
M.F.A. in
Architectural
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theory and
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from Yale U
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niversity.
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PT

Essay origin
ally publishe
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Press & W
Essays On
interhouse E
Graphic D
ditions, 2001
esign, New
). It was co
Media and
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Visual Cul
by David C
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arson for T
on Architect
he End of P
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rint: 2nd E
dition.