Font Rants on Many Subjects

The greatest thing about the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History isn't what you learn from the exhibits but what you learn from the exhibits. By this I mean the content of the exhibits is entirely secondary to their form. You can immediately tell which era a given exhibit is from by three things - the fonts used in the display, the opacity of the language, and the degree of arrogance they show toward other cultures. That's not to say that the more modern exhibits are less arrogant, they're just Clintonian about that arrogance. It's a kinder, gentler arrogance that has already accepted the goodness of stateless, godless imperialism. The emphasis is on how different everyone is all over the world, while still accepting the core value that as countries become part of the global system the fortunes of their citizens rise. These exhibits also have hipper fonts and corporate sponsors - Orkin for the insect zoo, the Podiatry Institute for the "Wellness" exhibit, and so on. I like the old fonts, the old unashamed superiority complex, and especially the window that shows the outcome of evolution to be man, bald, with a moustache, holding a briefcase. After the giant whales and insects and sharks and billions of years of evolution, the outcome is...Bartleby.
matt