Hasta La Ideas

Matthew Carter’s Walker

MoMA has acquired 23 digital fonts for their Architecture and Design collection, a recognition of the ongoing power of typography and design in contemporary culture. This acquisition represents a new “branch in [MoMA’s] collection tree.” Aside from Max Miedinger’s 36-point Helvetica Bold (designed in 1956), there previously were no typefaces in MoMA’s collection. The department plans to begin with this digital font collection and work backwards to document the past century. The digital font acquisition follows last year’s monumental announcement about MoMA’s acquisition of the “@” symbol. Read Paola Antonelli’s remarks about the history and significance of the symbol here. The fonts will be on view starting March 2 in MoMA’s Architecture and Design galleries, as part of a collection show entitled Standard Deviations; Prototypes, Archetypes, and Families in Contemporary Design.

From MoMA:

Type design follows the history of object and building design throughout the centuries; it similarly reflects social developments, advances in materials and means of production, cultural biases, and technological progress. Just like the design of artifacts and buildings, in the past two centuries type design has grappled with the industrial revolution first, and the digital revolution later. Just like architecture and object design, type design has had Modernist and postmodernist phases; like other designers, type designers have felt the need to find new inspiration in traditional examples, in the vernacular, and in popular culture. Type is a design universe unto itself, an essential dimension in the history of modern art and design. Typefaces–the building blocks of information printed or displayed onscreen–are design in and of themselves, even before they are used.

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