When I initially created this site I thought I knew whatmaterial was the most controversial and would trigger hundreds of e-mail responses. I was completely wrong. The material that provoked the most controversy was "Fonts and Drop Shadows."
I think the comments were evenly divided about my font choice for the original "Web Pages That Suck." One half liked it; the other half hated it. (For the record, the original font was Schmutz ICG Corroded — from the Image Club. My response to those who disliked it ran along the lines of, "I was trying some subtle humor by choosing a font that once was cool, but now sucks. It was meant to be like the front page where I used sucky techniques as an introduction." As we all know, if you have to explain the joke, it's not going to be funny.
The best commentary about this genre of fonts comes from the wickedly funny satirical site "The Onion." (http://www.theonion.com) These folks are insanely brilliant when it comes to parody and satire. In one of their fake news items they had the following story that sums it all up:
| ADVERTISER REACHES OUT TO YOUTH WITH OFF-SET, MIXED-TYPOGRAPHY FONT NEW YORK—In a bold, unconventional attempt to target America's elusive youth demographic, the advertising firm of Saatchi & Saatchi will utilize an off-set, mixed-typography font in its upcoming print campaign for Sprite. "We feel this crazy, jagged, broken typewriter-style font will resonate strongly with the jaded youth of Generation X," said Stephen Freed, co-director of creative services for the New York-based advertising giant. "Its broken, imperfect look captures perfectly that disillusioned, anti-commercial, 'I don't fall for slickness, dude' sentiment of today's slacker youth grunge culture. It also scanned extremely well with our test focus groups." |
Case closed.
The phrase "The Controversy" shows another overused font technique — enlarged typewriter text. You'll usually find this on a page with a black background, but I've placed it here because, hey, let's mix and match fonts and colors — another no-no.
A more serious issue revolves around drop shadows. While no one was able to give me an exact date, numerous designers wrote in telling me this technique is passé.
When I look at the sites I visit on the Net, it's about a 50-50 split between those who use drop shadows and those who don't. I'll let the issue rest for the time being, but I'll get back to it later. It might just turn out the Internet's real controversy isn't how to get more bandwidth, but people using drop shadows.