insights from robert bringhurst

In January I had the opportunity to hear Robert Bringhurst speak in Edmonton. His classic book on the topic of typography is The Elements of Typographic Style. I enjoyed the insights of this man who is an author and a typographer...and a lot of other things too, by the sound of it. Going through my day planner tonight, I noticed a few interesting points from his presentation at Grant Macewan University.

• Bringhurst spoke about listening to the text you are arranging on the page--being real, attentive and thoughtful. Instead of laying out body copy in a generally one-size-fits-all manner, he suggested "listening" to the copy. He used illustrations of typeset pages from 500 years ago when some things were done simply because they were beautiful--not necessarily because they were functional.
  
• Originality is the fruit of sincerity. The design world is full of people trying to copy a style that is trendy or that they've seen elsewhere, when often that is neither true to the subject of their design or to themselves as designers. We're each unique and our design choices should reflect that somehow.
  
• Typing without knowing how to form letterforms is like driving without knowing how to walk. Driving is helpful, useful and even necessary sometimes. But can you imagine how limiting it would be if you could only drive, and never walk? We should keep our options open. In the discussion it was brought up that in recent years some schools are teaching children to type directly after they are taught to print, skipping the script or cursive stage entirely. It was also mentioned how there is a movement for some Chinese children to never learn traditional Chinese characters but to write Chinese solely in Roman characters. Whether in English or Chinese, it is a shame to lose that which is a beautiful part of the culture and thus disconnect ourselves from the forms of expression used by generations before us.