Confessions of a Typomaniac

By SIMON GARFIELD

Of all the truly calamitous afflictions of the modern world, typomania is one of the most alarming and least understood. It was first diagnosed by the German designer Erik Spiekermann as a condition peculiar to the font-obsessed, and it has one common symptom: an inability to walk past a sign (or pick up a book or a menu) without needing to identify the typeface. Sometimes font freaks find this task easy, and they move on; and sometimes their entire day is wrecked until they nail it.

This week saw a flare-up of fontroversies with the news that New York's street signs were getting a reprieve from a 2018 deadline requiring the replacement of their iconic all-capitals format with a combination of capitals and lowercase. There will now be a more relaxed approach, the change occurring merely when the signs wear out. But the debate rages on: Are lowercase letters really safer in traffic (studies say they're easier to read at speed) than capitals?

And what about the other type news this week, that Central Park has homogenized its signage and now boasts some 1,500 new signs in a face known as Titling Gothic, replacing the eclectic-cum-hodgepodge of signs that used to tell you where you could or couldn't walk, sit or skate? And what do we think of Titling Gothic anyway, bold white on a green background—does it remind you a little of Helvetica, with that square block over the i and the teardrop heart of the a?

The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album used Cooper Black. The font looks best from afar, and the bigger, the better—otherwise, it's hard to read.

The type world has changed immeasurably in the last 20 years. We are now all masters of our font destinies, able to switch emotion with one click from the pull-down menu.

Want something authoritative and trustworthy? Times New Roman and Gill Sans should do you. Too dull? Why not the slightly warmer Georgia, my choice for an all-purpose serif. (What's the difference between serif and sans serif? Oh, come on, now—the former has those little feet and tips at the edges of its letters, while the latter, without them, often appears more modern.)

Or perhaps you're looking for a headline for your school project on Egypt—why not Herculanum? Or a nice fat '60s font for the invite for your college reunion that's going to take everyone back instantly to their carefree beach-bum days—try Cooper Black, as used on the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album cover. And then there's the awning of the new toy shop you're opening—Comic Sans, of course. (Just don't try using Comic Sans on your job application, at least not if you're hoping to get employed as anything but a clown.)

And whom can we thank for all this power in our hands? The same man we've been thanking profusely for other things these last few days, Steve Jobs. Shortly after he dropped out of college, Mr. Jobs found that he had the freedom to attend classes on subjects that pleased him rather than bored him. At one of these he discovered the joys of calligraphy and typefaces. He found the experience "beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture," as he once said.

And so when the Mac was born a decade later, Mr. Jobs gave its users something novel, a choice of fonts—everything from Times New Roman to the original Chicago and Venice—a revolutionary act that loosened our dependence on the professional designer. (Whether your nice new printer could cope with them was another matter.)

I first became interested in type when I bought David Bowie's "Hunky Dory" album in my teens. Taking it home on the upper deck of a London bus, I remembered staring intently at the sleeve for clues to what might lie inside. "Hunky Dory" offered its wares in a type called Zipper, a classic bit of buzzy sci-fi text that suggested something spacey and robotic (the songs were actually spacey and vulnerable).

It soon became clear that type was strong stuff, able to confer emotion and mood in the most direct ways. The bus I was riding had its destination letters in less imaginative type, but they were no less functional (they were in the ultra-clear Johnston font that also adorned the London Underground). Like reliable architecture, form followed function: The bus letters had clarity while Bowie's had intrigue.

Once you begin with fonts, they have a habit of drawing you in. You can become a font god pretty soon and annoyingly sure about what works and what doesn't—and why. Fonts surround us every day, the secret glue that guides our lives, so it's handy to comprehend their gentle powers.

Ask the team responsible for Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2008 how important the choice of Gotham (bold, modern, somehow trustworthy) was in its campaign. It was certainly a better choice than Hillary Clinton's use of New Baskerville Bold. What choice was that for a revolutionary voice?

Your choice of font is all about appropriateness and nuance. And of course originality and self-expression. Not to mention being reasonably cool.

So let me offer this bit of font advice: Be adventurous. Don't settle for the default choice, but play around with the pull-down menu until what you have to say matches the way you say it. And then perhaps go online and add to your collection from the many font shops and type bureaus out there.

Fonts are like clothes—an expression of individuality. You don't wear a suit to the baseball game, so don't use a straitjacket on your words. There are more than 100,000 different fonts in digital form, many of them beautiful, elegant and underused. They are the cheapest and simplest form of influential communication that we have. So go on, set them free.

Letters of Introduction

Helvetica is everywhere. Gotham was the font of choice in Barack Obama's 2008 campaign and has since been used by Sarah Palin and several tea-party candidates. Comic Sans, with its soft, rounded letters, is so reviled that it spawned a website: bancomicsans.com. The story of fonts goes back 560 years, to Gutenberg's original letters. Today there are more than 100,000 in digital form, each with its own personality.

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Penguin

European discount airline easyJet chose an old 1920s font, Cooper Black, for its branding.

Cooper Black

European discount airline easyJet chose an old 1920s font, Cooper Black, for its branding. It implies a warm fuzziness, as if to say: "We're one of you! Climb aboard!" Before that, the font's most famous appearance was on the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album. The font looks best from afar, and the bigger, the better—otherwise, it's hard to read.

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Penguin

Helvetica is the font of New York's subway system.

Helvetica

Born in Switzerland in 1957, Helvetica is ubiquitous, often found in corporate logos (think American Airlines) and in New York's subway system. It's clean and modern but has enough quirks—like the teardrop belly of the a—to keep a friendly homeliness.

In 2009, IKEA changed the typeface in its signs and catalogs. IKEA before, in Futura.

F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal

IKEA after, in Verdana.

Verdana

In 2009, IKEA changed the typeface in its signs and catalogs. Typophiles noticed—and went online with their grievances. IKEA had switched from Futura, linked to 1920s political art movements, to the far more common Verdana, which was created for Microsoft. One common complaint: "so predictable, so dull, so corporate."

—Mr. Garfield is the author of "Just My Type: A Book About Fonts," published this week by Gotham/Penguin.