I hate small type, there you go, I said it. Maybe it’s because I’m not a creative, or even a designer for that matter. No, I’m a communications person at heart. Effective communications essentially. And in my heart (and head actually) there’s rarely a time and place for type you can barely read or struggle to decipher. Terms and conditions usually or phone book entries. Beyond that, let’s chunk it up a notch. But designers love it small, love to work friendly, accessible brand guidelines as hard as possible. What do you mean 12 point? Uurgh. Can’t we do it in 8 point Helvetica Thin and hope that the design will wow the 75% of the audience who bother to read it that much, the other 25% hardly matter anyway.

Anything worth publishing through any media probably deserves to be read, not admired for it’s design integrity but ignored because the body copy has been produced in type that induces a headache to focus on. I cringe when I read recruitment adverts with type you struggle to read where the advertiser has attempted to squeeze the best part of a service contract into a 4 x 3col MEN advert. I cringe further when I see bus rears you can’t read from the car behind. Billboards you have to stop to read. Anything at all in print where white type has filled in. And not because of the poor chap printing the paper in the middle of the night but because a designer didn’t bother checking the production specifications of said newspaper.

So not for the first time today, I asked a designer to amend some type…

Chief Chunk: “What I want is for the message to be a bit more engaging. A bit more oomph. Bolder. A bit of stand-out. In your face…you know, a bit…?”.

Designer: “Chunky?”

Chief Chunk: “Yes, please”.

I really shouldn’t stick my nose in but I do love chunky type. Cue designer’s guffaws, comments…