Alessandro Segalini

A life rich in reading is the only path to thinking and creating.

We realize now that long documents do not work on the web. We should never have thought otherwise. But all those short documents we’re reading instead are poisoning our ability to read long documents.

It is almost impossible to look and read at the same time: they are different actions.

What they call Originality is achieved by getting down to the root-principle underlying the practice. From that origin you think your way back to the surface, where you may find you’re breaking untrodden ground.

What a shame to our age for making books void of lasting.

Since typography is a communication method that utilizes a gathering of related subjects and methodologies that includes sociology, linguistics, psychology, aesthetics, and so much more – we aim to educate that there is no single approach within typography that applies to everything.

I submit to you, if the kids today had to cast off, count character, use a haberule and do the math, there wouldn’t be as many people wanting to pursue a Career in Design.

Drawing is what I always loved the most. I discovered drawing type is drawing in a very pure form. Because a type designer does not draw letters. A type designer designs words and words are structures that contain patterns of black and white shapes, form and counterform. It is a game that deals with space and rhythm. Which is precisely what, for me, is the essence of drawing.

Type design is one of the most visible and widespread forms of graphic expression in daily life. It is still not noticed by all readers of newspapers, magazines or books. Nevertheless letter forms reflect the style of a period, and its cultural background. We are surrounded by them everywhere. The designer of new typefaces works in extremely small dimensions in shaping a letter, and he is also limited by the traditional forms of the alphabet. There are few possibilities for new ideas, for a good design should not have eccentric and unusual details. But the compromises required in designing for metal type can be ignored today because the new digital technology allows freedom in making new designs. Typography is two-dimensional architecture, based on experience and imagination, and guided by rules and readability. And this is the purpose of typography: The arrangement of design elements within a given structure should allow the reader to easily focus on the message, without slowing down the speed of his reading.

Type is like music in having its own beauty, and in being beautiful as an accompaniment and interpretation; and typography can be used to express a state of the soul, like the other arts and crafts. But like them it is too often used mechanically, and so the full expressiveness of this medium is unrealized. If it is used according to a rule or recipe, it becomes dull and loses vividness. Type appears at first to be a rigid medium; but like other rigid media, it is plastic to the living spirit of a craftsman.