06.08.18
Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand | Audio

Episode 82: Constitutional Sans


The New York Times recently posted the contents of a confidential letter from John Dowd , a lawyer for the President, to special counsel Robert Mueller.

What concerns us here at The Observatory is that — according to Amy Fiscus, an editor who has seen the actual letter, Dowd’s letterhead was in the childlike and often ridiculed font Comic Sans.

Jessica, who wrote The Global Curse of Comic Sans for Design Observer back in 2006, says:

There’s something about the idea of a Trump White House document of importance being rendered in a font that most of us find appropriate for kindergarten. That in a sense is the resonance of this administration: it’s silly, it’s not serious, it’s comic.

And then Michael makes tuba sounds.

Also mentioned this week:

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Posted in: The Observatory




Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer. A former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Eye and Communications Arts magazine, she is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame. Jessica received both her BA and MFA from Yale University where she has taught since 1994. In 2013, she won the AIGA medal.

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