We all know it to some degree whether we realize it or not. It’s so deeply ingrained in us that we hardly notice it in our everyday encounters. Once upon a time it was a foreign, interesting phenomenon. We use it to be heard—to connect with one another. It is the very foundation of our society…
No, it’s not Facebook. I’m talking about type!
I’m sure we have all owned those “ABC” building blocks at some point during our childhood. Sure, maybe we traded those awesome vintage-looking wooden blocks for some lead-based cubes made in China, but their role in our lives is still just as impactful. It was our first encounter with type—with communication.
People will say “Typography? I don’t know anything about that stuff! I’m not a Graphic Designer, or a whateveryoucallit!” But, the truth is that you don’t need to be. We all forget that our love affair with type started before we could even walk. Yes, that’s right. Before you could even say your own name, you have been fiddling about with typography.
We used to take those lovely, colorful “ABC” blocks and build incredible towers of letters with them. Or we would construct unsolvable labyrinths through which our G.I. Joe figures could wander about. Either way, we were using our imagination and creativity to make letters bend to our will.
Type is an essential part of our lives and it allows us to communicate the way we see fit. Most of our reactions to it, however, are triggered unconsciously. It’s surprising how our simple everyday choices are affected by type. If you don’t believe me, pay attention to your surroundings the next time you’re walking around your neighborhood. Where would you rather eat lunch: the restaurant whose name appears in elegant hand-written letters across their storefront, or the local diner who’s rusty old sign lights up like a throwback to some 50’s greaser movie? Think about it.
Before you know it, you’ll start to notice the type around you wherever you are. You’ll begin to question it and want to understand why it was chosen for that particular purpose. But most importantly, don’t forget to give a good “hey, that looks really cool” and snap a quick photo every now and then. It’s good for you. It’s fun.
By: Bryan Heredia
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I love type. I especially enjoy looking through the individual characters and punctuation and seeing how differently they can be rendered from type family to family. I also love old typewriters and the romanticism they invoke of an era long gone by. So when I discovered this mark used to be a key on a machine that I held dear to me, I at once had to learn more about this mysterious thing called… the interrobang.
The interrobang is a mark that combines the exclamation point and a question mark into one individual mark. It is used to emphasize a rhetorical statement or to show surprise. And being an advocate for precise and succinct communication, wouldn’t it be more adept and aesthetically pleasing to get your point across by combining the two marks into a wonderful, singular mark? Apparently I am not the only one who feels this way and nearly 50 years ago this mark made its first appearance.
The interrobang was created in 1962 by Martin K. Speckter who used the mark in an article for TYPEtalks Magazine in order to fill a gap in the system where writers often used cumbersome and unattractive combinations of the question and exclamation marks. (!?!?!?!?) Soon after, the Wall Street Journal ran an article using it. Talk shows were discussing the craze of the newest punctuation mark in the English language. And in 1968, Remington included the mark on its typewriters. But alas, as all fads go, the interrobang never caught on as a standard mark in modern day typesetting to the dismay of many including myself.
How did this mark get its name? ”Interro” is short for the interrogation point, which is another name for a question mark. And “bang” was printer’s slang for an exclamation point. Although the interrobang is not in modern punctuation — or on our keyboards — some typefaces do include a glyph for the interrobang character. Perhaps it is poetic that the typewriter and interrobang fell out of fashion at nearly the same time… poetic for me anyway. ‽
By: Andrea Colón
