12/09/2016
JOKERMAN: A DESIGNER'S PERSPECTIVE
Let’s talk about briefly about “Jokerman“ and then use that as a launch pad to delve into the soul of typography.
A brief summary of Jokerman: It’s awful. Why? Let’s put it this way: an alphabet should never have letters so BUSY that they distract from readability. Any one letter that stands out too much from the rest takes on the role of an estranged icon and loses its value.
I assume this font is self-aware, but even so. Letters are part of a set, fractions of a whole, individual pieces to a 26 part puzzle with infinite arrangements. Text sets itself apart from imagery in a very unique way: You can look at both, but you can only READ text. If you take that aspect away and devalue the legibility, you lose both the purpose and the power of the letters.
Take one letter of Jokerman, frame it, hang it in a museum. It makes for great art, but a poor typeface. (I also find it funny that if you Google search Jokerman Font the second image that comes up reads “Don’t use this font.”)
