Less is More, Maybe

My personal type aesthetic is a minimalist one, though I wonder if this is just laziness: If less is more, then maybe I can get away with knowing fewer typefaces. Perhaps more is more, but the reality is that it's better to know and understand a few typefaces well than to have a font list a mile long and only a passing acquaintance with the fonts that are on it.

Choosing a typeface is about enhancing the meaning of the text you are working with. It's also about meeting the expectations and matching the tastes of your client. In a perfect world, we'd all read and thoroughly digest the text documents we are given to work with as raw materials. Depending on the length of your documents, that may or may not be possible, but you should at least have an understanding of the intended message.

Figure 3.1. A page from Adobe's online type library.