In reply to Relationship between geometry and typography:
The secret of good design is this: Geometry is shit*.
If it looks good, it is good. All the Victorian analogies comparing the body to a machine and more modern ones comparing our minds and perceptions to computers, cameras, or – whatever else, have to be put aside. The body and the mind are a hopeless mess by the measure of such mechanical and digital models. Our perceptions are imprecise, evolved to make us really good at hunting and foraging and spotting tigers in the brush, although since we are social animals with brains, they aren’t nearly as good as the tigers. That we are even capable of distinguishing a circle from a square has to be a byproduct of those skills.
Our eyes are affected by all kinds of peripheral visual noise to the point that, in the context of a string of characters, circles don’t necessarily look round. You have to correct them. Vertical strokes look thinner than horizontal ones of the same thickness. You have to correct them too. Identical features can look different and different ones can look identical.
*I lied. Geometry isn’t strictly shit, but strictly glyphs made up of replicated un-modualted basic geometric shapes . IMAHO.
The other secret to good design is that being good at drawing and design is no big deal. It's all just just geometry after all. :o)
