Crystal Goblet Analysis

The drive to the core of absence is also evident in the realm of type design. In 1932, Beatrice Warde, an American typographic expert, published an essay ‘The Crystal Goblet’, or known as ‘Printing Should Be Invisible’, insists on a ‘invisible’ or ‘transparent’ typography in order to elevate the printed words. In her essay, Warde applied a metaphor that the design for typefaces should be as transparent as crystal glass for wine (Warde, 1936, p.6). A typeface, as a container, is calculated to reveal and not to hide the beautiful contents which it is meant to contain. The design of the ‘container’ should not call undue attention to itself. Her theory of invisible typefaces is in line with Modernism simplicity as well as functionality, which perfect

Here, the term ‘beauty’ involves both form, shape and the relationship among people, environment, and the circumstances. Without doubt, beauty enhance the possibility of widely usage and longevity, providing daily life with pleasant and inspirations. There is an argument that this is a field where design has taken over from art, partly because the visual elements of design have become so much more refined. Yet there are some clear-cut cases. One is illustrated by the aesthetic differences between two typefaces that are included in the typeface menus of most computers: Arial and Helvetica. At first glance they look very similar, so much that each is often mistaken for the other. When Arial was introduced in 1982, it was generally seen as a copy of Helvetica. Mark Simonson, an American graphic designer, produced an analysis of the two, which shows how much more refined Helvetica’s detailing is than Arial’s. The tail of the ‘a’ is gently curved in Helvetica, as is the first connection of the bowl to the stem, but not in Arial. Similarly, the top of the ‘t’ and the ends of the strokes in the ‘C’ and ‘S’ are perfectly horizontal in the former, but slightly angled in the later. He also noted that the stem of Helvetica is more complex in the structure than those in Arial. The distinguishing details are so tiny that you can only see them if you scrutinize magnified versions of each character as Simonson did. Only a handful of the millions of people who use either typeface will ever look closely enough to notice them. Yet it is these subtleties that make Helvetica a finer example of design than Arial. Functionally the two fonts are roughly equal, as both are admirable clear and easy to read, but aesthetically Helvetica is