Campaign typography – a minor but interesting subject
I’ve recently become more and more obsessed with typography, so the recent N.Y. Times article about the typography of McCain’s campaign logo comes at a good time for me.
One of the comments is that his logo uses the same typeface (Optima) as is used for the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial. Deliberate or chance? I think it has to be deliberate. I’ve been to the memorial several times, and the power of the etched names is unforgettable even to someone who wasn’t directly involved in the war.
Typography has emotional connotations at levels we often are not consciously aware of. Monkeys can apparently be trained to recognize Helvetica fonts with a 90% success rate, so it is not surprising that we can differentiate typefaces on an emotional level.