{"id":373,"date":"2003-09-22T08:47:19","date_gmt":"2003-09-22T15:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2003\/09\/its_all_times_roman_to_me\/"},"modified":"2003-09-22T08:47:19","modified_gmt":"2003-09-22T15:47:19","slug":"its_all_times_roman_to_me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/its_all_times_roman_to_me.php","title":{"rendered":"It’s all ‘Times Roman’ to me"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times has a whimsical article on MoMA’s refurbished logo and typeface<\/a>. While winking throughout about how nobody will ever know the difference, the article also showed the depth of thinking and craft that goes into even the things we never notice. It turns out, for example, that the original Franklin typeface had lost its character and flair somewhere over the past decades, as the article explains:<\/p>\n

\nMetal type traditionally has slight variations between point sizes, to compensate for the properties of ink and differences in proportion. But digital versions of historic typefaces are often created from metal originals of a single point size\u2039as was the case with the commercially available Franklin. It had been digitized from metal type of a small size, distending the proportions at its larger sizes. Once its defects were recognized, they became glaring: the letters were squat and paunchy, sapping all the elegance out of the white space between them. With some of the signage applications in the new building requiring type four feet tall, the small variations became “hideous,” Mr. Pusz said.\n<\/div>\n

\nWithin this whimsy, however, lies a fundamental disconnect between the business of art and just plain business. Excellence and obsession with detail makes great business sense when the consumer can recognize the difference, and pay extra for it. But great art is built on excellence and obsession that often goes unnoticed by its audience. From the perspective of critics, one performance or artwork may be profoundly better than another. But the vast majority of viewers or audience members honestly couldn’t tell one from the other.<\/p>\n

\nA business focus would suggest that we minimize these tiny and unperceivable increments of excellence (after all, they lead to much higher costs and aren’t recognized by the consumer). The artful manager, on the other hand, sees that the exceptional moment of connection is all about those insignificant details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times has a whimsical article on MoMA’s refurbished logo and typeface. While winking throughout about how nobody will ever know the difference, the article also showed the depth of thinking and craft that goes into even the things we never notice. It turns out, for example, that the original Franklin typeface had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}