I have my pet theories about type, as you undoubtedly do too. Mine warp and mutate more-or-less continually, and at present, I regard myself a utility-based gestaltist. Fancy that! So what do I mean?
Well, I happen to view typefaces not in terms of a few, select characters, but as whole blocks spanning 0 to 255 (and beyond), the virgule as important as the ampersand as important as the Z. Designers who produce book faces perhaps share this perspective. If a face is thoughtfully and carefully designed, the whole is indeed much more than the sum of its parts; but if reduced effort is applied, the net result may be much less. That’s the gestalt part; it forms the metaphorical trunk of the tree. Utility, then, comprises all of the branches and leaves.
Sincere efforts at crafting book faces may assume a gestaltist perspective and do well to have utility as a central aim. I’ll define utility as the sum of three factors:
Identifiability, or unambiguity – that is, the ease of identification of each of the letters, numbers, and other glyphs in the face; also, the canonical or archetypal nature of their forms.
Interoperability, or cohesiveness – the manner with which the different glyphs work together on the page and truly constitute a single typeface with one, unified voice.
The inclusiveness or completeness of the face – the extent to which it has all of the necessary components for setting text well: small caps, text figures, and ligatures among them; through all of Bringhurst’s secondary level and at least part of his tertiary (v. 2.5, p54).
