"Well-chosen words deserve well-chosen letters"

Typography as a concept is like clothing. The sizes, colours, and shapes may change with the trends but our need for clothing will not. Likewise, sometimes we notice outfits and pairings of clothing items and sometimes we don't. Noticing outfits can be the result a good choice, or a bad choice - one that suggests it might be laundry day and we just threw on whatever was still clean.

In my experience, strong typography always stirs the same reaction in me. A breath.
I get the sense that Bringhurst would understand my reaction from reading his description of the power of typography. A piece with strong typography lets me breathe, lets me rest. I know the difference between looking at a document and panicking and looking at a document and taking a breath.
This may sound dramatic but if I am presented with one of these take-a-breath documents, I feel loved. I feel like the designer created space for me and that they considered me, their reader, when they wrote/designed.

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"Well-chosen words deserve well-chosen letters" (again, Bringhurst)

I was once asked to write an article for a newsletter that is distributed all over Alberta. It took me a full day to write and I cried over it. I'm not a crier but I'll tell you why I was overwhelmed to the point of tears: The sheer weight of words.
I somehow understood that my words held value and that my audience was as broad as people that can read. I was asked to share my experience. Sharing meaning vulnerability. These are scary things! I remember how then, and many times since, I chose my words so very carefully, almost painfully. My story doesn't end in some disaster of my article being printed in some shockingly bad typeface (cough*chalkduster*cough) but these words of Bringhurst caught my attention because I have also known well-chosen words and I can appreciate the importance of the letters they are given.

Placing a typeface on text gives it an identity. Not in a mask-wearing, new outfit kind of way but in a representation of the text's meaning kind of way.

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Bringhurst suggests that typography should perform these services for the reader:

//   invite the reader into the text;
//   reveal the tenor and meaning of the text;
//   clarify the structure and the order of the text;
//   link the text with other existing elements;
//   induce a state of energetic repose, which is the ideal condition for reading.

I'm including these in hopeful anticipation of some stray reader understanding the importance of at least knowing about typography as a thing to be considered. Admittedly, it's importance, existence, and necessity was all lost on me prior to learning the process of what it takes to design a new typeface.
I'm also including these in hopeful anticipation that I will return often to these typographic truths. I want to let people breathe and make them feel considered in my work.

Data is Both Number and Value

What kind of data would make me want to tell stories?

In answering this question, I need to first understand why we tell stories. Does it always need to have a meaning or a moral? If it is argued that it doesn’t need this kind of purpose, is there any good reason for telling a story? Is this, perhaps, the difference between unnecessary noise and valuable information?

I think that stories are influential in any sense because they impact our emotions. They cause our reaction. It touches our values – the core of our personhood.

If this is the case, I want to deal with data that impressed upon values. Then, some values are subjective; others still, are objective. I have my personal set of beliefs and values and you surely do to. These are three questions I’m challenging myself to understand when deciding to tell stories:

1. What things make me come alive?
2. What cause(s) can I imagine myself, if not now but in the future, excellent at living in defense of?
3. What is the problem in the world that I am meant to solve?

It’s not easy to answer these questions and it takes, as I’m learning, a life time of searching, experiencing, self-awareness, anticipating, reacting, forgetting, and re-learning.

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Now, in the direction of becoming more concrete:

I read a quote recently that described people as “drowning in information while starving for wisdom.” This is where I will begin my discussion of what kind of data would make me want to tell stories.