A Font Of Designs

I have always been drawn to the powerful effect of graphic design.

Words lettered in Times New Roman, chiseled on Kansas City’s Liberty Memorial, were first read to me by my grandfather, a World War I veteran. As I was only 5 at the time, he read the words to me and I ran my fingers along the sharp edges of the engraved words. Below these big, beautifully deeply cut letters came vertical rows of complicated words that turned out to be names, most of which my grandfather knew very well as he recited them softly to me.

The dignity of the Roman typeface will always stay with me, elegantly etched on those cold limestone walls, and forever etched in my memory.

Interior designers have co-opted the power of typeface and the powerful narratives it can express since hieroglyphics graced Egyptian tombs of the pharaohs.

In the late 19th century, William Morris, the famous textile designer and social activist, printed words on his wallpapers and used inspirational quotes in dazzlingly enigmatic arts-and-crafts scrawl to decorate the friezes beneath the crowns of his rooms. Stanford White employed decorative typefaces in his architectural work, emblazoning profound thoughts and lyrical messages on many of his rooms and edifices.

Inspiration to textile and wallpaper designers alike, alphabet fonts have graced walls, sofas, curtains and rugs. The very talented textile designer from Springs, Ted Tyler of Tyler Graphics, has effectively printed Latin text as a dynamic wallpaper. The viewer notices only the striking pattern, not the Latin verbs he used to make the font become the pattern.

For the Holiday House Hamptons show house one year, when the theme was the Swedish Midsummer’s solstice, I chose Scandinavian script with the Swedish translation of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to lull the walls of the bedroom. Glazed and stenciled in amber hues, the subtle backdrop of words became a layered curiosity.

With a great deal of personal meaning, I printed the lyrics of “Blue Skies” beneath my kitchen beams. My father, a jazz pianist, always celebrated the famous upbeat lyrics by Irving Berlin: “Never saw the sun shining so bright, never saw things going so right.” I wanted to always be reminded both of my father and this particularly upbeat missive. So, I had the words printed on the wall. Taking my coffee in hand every morning, and looking up at that architectural frieze of printed words, always sets my day on a positive path.

One of my heroes, Milton Glaser, a renowned graphic designer who created the iconic logo “I heart New York” has been quoted as saying, “I tried to design with a sense of open possibilities.” Perhaps one of those possibilities will be the dynamic use of fonts, typeface and inspirational quotes in the decoration of your home.