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| Top Stories in Typography |
| Talking Type with Robin Williams | | Date Created: 17 Nov, 2005, 10:34 PM |
| Interview with Robin Williams by Benjamin Levisay |
 I started FontGeek.net as a place where Mac OS X font issues could be discussed and solutions to those issues could be given to the graphics community. And I think we’ve managed to do that, more or less. As the readership has grown, we’ve gotten more and more requests for design and content about typography. Since I’m not a designer, I haven’t pursued that kind of content as vigorously as I have some other kinds of solution based articles. But I am interested in serving my readership.
With that in mind, I started thinking about type, design, and the influential people in that world. It was hard for me not to immediately think of one of my heros in the world of type and design; the noted author Robin Williams. It was a fairly large step for me when I e-mailed Ms. Williams and asked her if she’d consent to doing an interview for FontGeek.net. To my surprise and delight, she graciously said yes. And so I’m pleased to share the following conversation with a woman who I’m sure has forgotten more about typography than I will probably ever know. |
Benjamin: Thank you so much for doing this interview. I have to tell you that I have always admired and appreciated your work. My father, David Xenakis introduced me to The Mac is Not a Typewriter and A Blip in the Continuum when I worked for him at his magazine (Knitter's Magazine). These books gave me my first true appreciation of type and typography. Since then I have purchased several other books you've written -- including The Non-Designer's Type Book, The little iMac Book, The Robin Williams Mac OS X Book: Jaguar Edition, and How to Boss Your Fonts Around. I've enjoyed them all.
As I said when I e-mailed you... FontGeek.net which started as a Fonts / Mac OS X help site, is growing. And I'd like to expand the content toward typography and design. And whenever I think about typography and design, I think of your wonderful books.
Welcome. |
 Robin Williams: Benjamin, thank you -- I'm honored that you thought of me.
Benjamin: I've been on your site <http://www.ratz.com> and it lists all of your work as well as showing your family. After looking at the volume of work you've done and continue to do... the first question I would like to ask is... "How do you find the time?"
Robin Williams: Ha! I work from 8 a.m. until midnight seven days a week for months on end. It's really boring. I've been trying to find time to clean my office for twenty years now. |
 Benjamin: I'd like to ask you about the very first book of yours that I was ever introduced to. The Mac is not a Typewriter an important work. It's the perfect transition book between word processing and page layout. And it is still as relevant today as it was when it was first published in 1989. Is it true that this was a self published book? How did you come about doing this book?
Robin Williams: Yes, I did self-publish that book, right after I self-published The Little Mac Book. Ten publishers had turned me down so I did it myself, and now they've sold close to two million copies. I'm now working on a book that's not in the computer field at all and running into the same problem (being turned down for publication), so I'll probably have to self-publish once again.
Benjamin: What’s that book about? |
Robin Williams: It’s about a woman who wrote work attributed to William Shakespeare. You can learn more about this at http://www.marysidney.com
Benjamin: As you read through The Mac is not a Typewriter, there are some very simple rules for using type... Which of those do you think are the most important?
Robin Williams: Don't use typewriter quote marks!!!!!!! I am aghast at the million-dollar ads I see in magazines or on television where typewriter quotes and apostrophes are used. How do designers get to the positions of being hired to create million-dollar ads and don't know how to create real apostrophes???????
And put the apostrophes in the right places. I know, we're designers, not grammarians, but we are setting the type ourselves and we need to know that stuff. It makes me crazy that so few people know where to put the apostrophes in something like "Cookies ’n’ cream" when they're going to put it on the label of eight billion ice cream cartons!!!!
Sorry. I get a little worked up about that.
Benjamin: Is this the book (The Mac is not a Typewriter ) that you think you are best known for? Do you plan to update it with concepts like Optical kerning in the Adobe products? |
 Robin Williams: Optical kerning (vs. metrical kerning) is in The Non-Designer's Type Book, which relies more on using a page layout application. The Mac is not a typewriter has only concepts that anyone on any word processor should know.
Benjamin: Do you use Optical kerning in all of your work?
Robin Williams: No. I like Optical kerning, and it does have it’s place. Combining different fonts or using fonts that aren’t constructed all that well (fonts that don’t have a lot of kerning pairs) is usually the reason that I’ll use Optical kerning.
Benjamin: As well as for numbers, which most typographers don’t build kerning pairs for... Speaking of Adobe products, I understand that you've recently written an article in Layers Magazine billed as “...how to master the art of Typography using Adobe InDesign” in Layers Magazine. I haven't read it yet. Can you tell us a bit about it?
Robin Williams: Actually, the article is specifically about the letter-spacing features in InDesign -- the differences between auto kerning, pair kerns, optical and metrical kerning, tracking, justification spacing and its attendant letter-spacing, etc., and when and why to use each one. I've included this article in the update of The Non-Designer's Type Book which is now on the shelves. |
 Benjamin: Let's jump back a bit to the second book of yours that I was exposed to. A Blip in the Continuum (published in 1995) is one of my favorites. It's just plain fun. How did you get interested in de-constructive fonts?
Robin Williams: I realized that with desktop publishing and the new (at the time) programs in which anyone could design fonts that this was the first time on the planet, the first time in the history of human beings, that typography was in the hands of the masses. Really -- this had never happened before. And it was fascinating to see what we did with that power -- the lawlessness, the experimentation, the rule breaking, the pure joy of making our own letters for READING. And then it was fascinating to see the reaction of the good ol' boys of typography and their articles ranting about how terrible this all was and then to see how these radical typefaces infiltrated themselves into our lives and aren't even very surprising now. It's like a microcosmic example of how humans react to everything -- if it's new or alien, it's scary and bad, then we get used to it and even start to accept and embrace it. Typography as life. ;-)
Benjamin: As I understand it, that book is now out of print.
Robin Williams: Yes. I think that’s right.
Benjamin: The Non-Designer's Type Book (published in 1998) is also a great resource. This book has a very different approach to type than The Mac is not a Typewriter but there are some similarities. Can you tell me about that?
Robin Williams: The Mac is not a typewriter is for anyone typing in any program, even the most basic word processor. The Non-Designer's Type Book (second edition on the stands right now) explains guidelines for more professional type. Many of the features mentioned in the book can only be accomplished in a page layout application. Despite the title, it's pretty clear by the work I see in magazines and posters and annual reports and television ads that there are huge numbers of professional designers who need that book. ;-) |
 Benjamin: I have to thank you for The Little iMac Book (first published in 1998). I've been into Macs for years. So when my wife got her very own first iMac and my mother got an iMac it was more or less assumed that I would simply teach them what to do. But teaching family isn't like teaching other people. You tend to wear on each other's nerves. You're book saved me from that. I bought my wife The Little iMac Book. She read it cover to cover and then passed it along to my mom. The help desk calls were really minimal. Do you get other "Thank yous" from your readers with similar stories?
Robin Williams: Apparently I've saved a number of marriages. ;-) |
 Benjamin: I didn't switch to OS X until after Jaguar came out. And about the time that I switched there was a brand new book out on the market... The Robin Williams Mac OS X Book: Jaguar Edition (published in 2003). Like all of your books... this one was just beautiful. Not only was it informative but it was so well designed. Did you do the design for this one yourself?
Robin Williams: I research, write, design, lay out, index, and create the table of contents for every book. My editor edits on hard copy along the way (and I choose whether or not to make those changes), so by the time I finish a book it's ready for press and the finished book appears on my doorstep three weeks later. The Tiger book I did at the request of Apple went from me to Peachpit for a quick check to the press and was in stores twelve days later. Because I do the production along the way, I was able to have the only Tiger book on the shelves the day Tiger shipped.
Benjamin: I also read at the end of the book that you did the entire thing without Microsoft Word -- which is unusual for writing books. Can you tell me about the process and what lead up to producing this book in such an unusual way?
Robin Williams: I keep a Microsoft-free environment.
I have to write the books directly on the InDesign page because I firmly believe that how it looks on the page is just as important as what it says, as far as understanding the material. Someday I'd like to write a little book about how to present technical information so it can be understood. |
 Benjamin: In 1997 you wrote, what I think, was the very first guide to font management called... How to Boss Your Fonts Around. I'm very much aware of just what a large subject this is... full of variations and conditional solutions. I can see how it could easily be 2 or 3 times as large. How did you tackle choosing what to write and what not to write?
Robin Williams: I tend to write the books I want to have. I wanted a book that explained how to manage all my fonts and there wasn't one so I wrote it. ;-) I get the impression that people often think I write these books because I already know all that stuff, but actually I know a little, then I research and test and find out the rest of it as I write the book. It's the process of writing the book that turns me into the expert -- not the other way around. I've often wished I would write a book on FileMaker Pro just so I could justify taking the time to learn it myself. Or at least teach a class.
Benjamin: Besides all of the good information about the various fonts in that book, you did a comparison of the various font managers. At the time I think I remembered that you were a FontReserve user yourself -- which I thought was odd because ATM Deluxe was still available at that time. Do you still use and advocate Font Reserve?
Robin Williams: Actually, I was never a big Font Reserve user. It bothers me when a program takes control of the management of my fonts and puts them in different places and adds folders, etc. I do recommend apps like that for people who don't want to deal with managing and organizing and cleaning up their own fonts, but personally I want to control the process myself. So I always did use and love ATM Deluxe, but of course I can't use it on OS X. I'm still looking for the perfect font management app.
Benjamin: Are you planning to update that book for OS X users?
Robin Williams: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! I wish someone else would, though!! How about YOU, Benjamin?!
For those FontGeek.net readers who are interested in the outcome of this question, please stay tuned...
Benjamin: Are you working on any books now? Are any of them font related?
Robin Williams: I just updated The Non-Designer's Type Book to second edition. But as I mentioned earlier, I've got a non-computer book I want to get to press and that's going to take priority over everything else for the next few months.
Benjamin: I know that you are heavily involved in your own area... speaking and teaching. What else is on your lecturing agenda in the coming months?
Robin Williams: Speaking about and teaching Shakespeare, actually. And about the woman who I think wrote the works attributed to the man named William Shakespeare. That's what my next book is about. And the book will have lovely typography. ;-)
Benjamin: If you had to give a young (or even an experienced) designer three tips about using type in their work what would they be?
Robin Williams: Read The Mac is not a typewriter. Read The Non-Designer's Type Book. Use InDesign (it far surpasses Quark in its typographic possibilities, although InDesign did pick up a couple of bad Quark type features that I wish they'd fix).
Benjamin: If you had to give an IT or a Mac guy three tips about managing fonts on an OS X computer, what would they be?
Robin Williams: ay chihuahua. Well, I assume IT guys don't have eight thousand fonts like you or I do, yes? If you're not a font freak, Font Book is probably just fine. Once you start collecting fonts, you do need a font manager like Suitcase or Font Agent Pro.
Benjamin: What do you consider to be the worst problem either in type use or font management that you see? And do you have any comments about that?
Robin Williams: Those are two completely different issues.
Font management: Messy organization, fonts in folders all over the place, several font families with the same name but from different vendors, fonts with the same names but different formats, storing too many useless files with your fonts, etc.
Font use: Too much Helvetica/Arial and Times. Let go. Move on. And that nasty Sand font [is that what it's called? I long ago deleted it from my computer but I see it all the time].
Benjamin: What do you consider to be the biggest gain that technology has brought to either typography, type use, or font management? And do you have any comments about that? |
 Robin Williams: OpenType fonts are a big deal. And InDesign -- I love the way that InDesign handles type. As for font management, I’m still looking for a good solution there. What do you use?
Benjamin: I use FontAgent Pro. I know that given my position at Insider Software, my own preferences could be considered suspect, but I was a big fan of FontAgent Pro well before I was working at Insider.
Robin Williams: We should talk more about that another time...
Benjamin: Thank you so much for your time. This has been a real treat for me.
Robin Williams: Me too, Benjamin! Thank you!! |
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