What about Avant Garde?We received a letter from Avis Fontaine, LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, Singapore, arrived in our mail box in early August and it inspired us to put the piece in the Type department Hi Fred! I'm the Corporate Communications Manager of LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts in Singapore.Avant Garde is a typeface I have decided to use as the corporate typeface for all of the College's communication materials. It is contemporary and serves to project the desired image of our College as one that focuses on contemporary practice in the arts. There have been some opposing views to the use of Avant Garde by some of my colleagues. With your expertise and experience in the industry, I would appreciate very much if I could have your views on this issue. The colleague of mine stresses that when Herb Lubalin designed Avant Garde, it was meant to be used only for headlines. Thus, it is wrong to use it for body copy because the x-height is short and the internal space large. I tend to disagree with this thought. I think at the end of the day, the designer needs to use his/her judgement on readability and legibility and not stick inflexibly to text book rules. If the typeface helps to project the desired image and is legible enough to comfortably communicate the message, we would have achieved our objectives with it. If we were always sticking to what is tried and tested, how would we ever break new ground? Avant Garde was a rule-breaking typeface at the time it was designed. Did Frank Stellar decide not to use industrial paint for his art because industrial paint wasn't invented for art? Thank goodness he followed his own mind! Could I have your views on the use of Avant Garde for body copy please. Thank you for your time. continues on next page... |