Art & Design Entropy | 14 Oct 2009
Periodic Table of Type
This post is for my friend Michele a graphic designer, photographer and artist having multidimensional background & training in the Arts and Science.
The Periodic Table of Typefaces is obviously in the style of all the thousands of over-sized Periodic Table of Elements posters hanging in schools and homes around the world. This particular table lists 100 of the most popular, influential and notorious typefaces today.
As with traditional periodic tables, this table presents the subject matter grouped categorically. The Table of Typefaces groups by families and classes of typefaces: sans-serif, serif, script, blackletter, glyphic, display, grotesque, realist, didone, garalde, geometric, humanist, slab-serif and mixed.
Each cell of the table lists the typeface and a one or two character “symbol” (made up by me simply based on logic), the designer, year designed and a ranking of 1 through 100. Ranking was determined by statistically sorting and combining lists and opinions from the the sites listed below. The final overall ranking was achieved depending on how many lists the particular typeface was presented on and it’s ranking on the lists (if the particular source list used a ranking system; some did not, in which case just the typeface’s presence on the list boosted it’s overall score.)
After averaging the typefaces appearances and rankings a composite score was given and the list was sorted on a spreadsheet then finally given an overall score of 1 through 100 based on its final resting position.
Unfortunately, the typefaces could not be sorted exactly numerically on the table while at the same time keeping them in groups of families and classes. It had to be one or the other. Of course it COULD have been done but I would have had to seriously sacrifice aesthetics of the overall design (i.e. it wouldn’t have come out looking AT ALL like a traditional periodic table.) However, upon close inspection, you find that at least the typefaces are ordered within their family/class groupings.
Explore the details in large format poster from this link..
© Source -Typegoodness.
on 14 Oct 2009 at 10:04 pm 1.michele roohani said …
Wow Ajay, you are spoiling me…
I love this Periodic Table (Being a chemical engineer creates conflicting emotions in me of course!)
Being still jet lagged and ups since 5 am, your post took me to a three hour adventurous trip to so many cool sites:
http://justcreativedesign.com/2008/09/23/top-7-fonts-used-by-professionals-in-graphic-design-2/
http://lmnop.blogs.com/lauren/2006/10/americas_most_f.html
http://www.flickr.com/groups/type/discuss/2020/
http://observatory.designobserver.com/
http://www.techcrunch.com/
I used to laugh when people would HATE or LOVE a typeface but as I am growing more familiar with different families of fonts, I understand these feelings better; I have to admit that there are fonts that make me cringe: Curlz, Comic Sans, Papyrus…
TEXT is sacred to me and any abuse of it (forced to be read in a bad font) is not accepted!
on 23 Oct 2009 at 7:25 pm 2.Max Babi said …
Hi Ajay and Michele,
How very interesting. I too wanted to be a chemical engineer, like you Michele, but those days one needed highest marks to get into that discipline… so I fell into metallurgical engineering, closest in a way to chemical engineering. Chemistry still fascinates me a lot… and the Periodic Table is so holy for me I don’t even discuss it with anyone. Like a secret God, worshipped in the land of Taliban. And then one meets very few enlightened souls who can talk about it.
I have a special interest in rare metals and their chemistry.
Thanks for the post and the comments… btw, Michele, I used to sit and doodle with fonts, had developed 100s of my own…in 1960s and 70s. Thus, fonts remain an obsession with me even now.
Warmest
on 24 Oct 2009 at 8:38 pm 3.Michele said …
Can you share some of those fonts Max?