Sep

Creating Yourself in Typography

by Sheron Long on September 17, 2012

Typography portrait, symbolizing creating yourself

Typography portrait made with the Spanish letters Ñ ñ
Image by Chinad011

In an “Oh, I See” Moment, I Found My Type of Twang

No sooner had Gutenberg made the free spread of ideas possible than people began designing different looks to the letters that spelled their words.

Breakthroughs are like that. They often occur for a singular purpose and then send life in a thousand directions when people say, “Oh, I see what I can do with that!”

Thanks to the creative ideas of all people before us, you can now flavor your communication with the style of your letters and even enjoy creating yourself in typography.

Got a fast note to write? Say it in:

Sending a love letter? Try one of these fonts:

For that big announcement, there’s always:

But when you need a wish to come true, make your request in:

I know about typography from my years in publishing, and there’s one other thing I know for sure. If I have something to say to my family in Texas, I better use:

If I don’t, I’m:

Crossing Cultures to Create Myself

When I left Texas in the seventies to explore the world, I had one Oh, I see moment after another.

I learned lettuce wasn’t all iceberg.

I found French dressing that wasn’t orange.

I learned I could talk without my Texas accent, and yet I looked forward to unpacking it at 35,000 feet whenever my plane crossed the Texas border.

Most important, I found out there are diverse cultures to respect, and beliefs aren’t absolute.

Moving across cultures, I added Spanish and French to the English and Texan that I spoke. I studied the contributions of people throughout history and realized the importance of encountering, in my time, a world where a woman could follow her passion and make choices of her own.

I came to appreciate the cultural heritage acquired by birth and the cross-cultural richness gained by life.

I understood why, after Gutenberg, so many typefaces appeared. The richness and variety of the marks that people and cultures make on the world could never be expressed by just one font.

Guess that’s why all these have been in my life at one point or another–

Oh, and I can’t forget Twang. It was there at birth and stayed, though it’s now in a fortunate mix of fonts enriched by cultural connections, remarkable people, and life experiences that combined to create my particular type of twang. OIC.