Despite a daily slog of despondency and rage at the state of the world, there were many personal and professional high points this year: the Alphabettes Variety Show at Typographics (and Indra yelling “Bingo!” during the conference), visiting the Letterform Archive and the San Francisco Zoo with my mom, son, and the wonderful Tânia, and a whirlwind trip to LA for the AIGA design education conference I helped organize. I also got tenure and my daughter is finally potty-trained. Those last two are equally significant.
I was already planning to attend ATypI in Montréal when Liron asked if I would like to interview conference speakers and attendees. Finally, the chance to realize my dream as a typographic talk show host! Boasting almost zero professional on-camera experience, I said yes. With designer, letterer, and ATypI-volunteer-who-happened-to-be-at-the-volunteer-table-when-I-showed-up Luke Norrad as the camera guy, we were ready to roll.
During the conference, Luke and I very professionally wandered around with our very professional gear, asking attendees a very professional question: If you could have dinner with any type person throughout history, who would it be? Some popular answers included Hermann Zapf, Beatrice Warde, William Addison Dwiggins, and Herb Lubalin (I’d totally go to that dinner party, by the way). However, there was one person whose name kept coming up as a favored guest. Luckily, he was in the room and had some ideas of his own.
The official interviews are available on the ATypI YouTube channel.
I loved this piece. Thanks again for doing it – and all the other interviews!