Dear Brooke

As far as i know, there is no special font for museums. When i did my
training we were told to use a common and straight forward font like Times
New Roman or Arial that was easily recogniseable and clear and easy to read.
For ease of reading this should be in a dark colour on a light colour, eg
black on white - apparently white on black does funny things to people's
eyes.

Designers will hate you, but it's much more legible if you only justify to
the left leaving the right ragged.

Also it was suggested not to go below 14 point for labels in cases, with
everything else bigger than that.Beyond that it's a case of writing in short
sentences and not using lots of technical terms or complex syntax. A general
guide seemed to be not more than 50 words per label or 250 on a wall panel.

If you're interested in presentation of text
you could look at the work of a Scandinavian woman
called something Ekarv.
She had a theory
that there should be one unit of information
or 'point'
per line
and that each line should only be
a certain number of syllables long.
Text ends up looking like poetry,
but not all museum people like it,
some find it contrived
or irritating.

All the best
Jane

>>I am currently co-editing "Alphabet", the journal for the San Francisco
>>Friends of Calligraphy. I am searching for a writer, an article, a person
>>who is knowledgeable about display fonts used in museum
>>displays/exhibitions - especially on the wall. Has a typeface been
designed
>>specifically to be read on a wall? If so, which one(s).  If not, what
>>typefaces are generally used?  I am often struck when visiting museums,
how
>>much type is presented to be read and wonder whether much thought has been
>>given to the amount of reading the museum is suggesting the viewer to do.
I
>>personally think that there is too much - for we know it's much easier to
>>sit down and read from a well-designed book...but maybe I am responding to
>>the way the words are presented????  Any thoughts?   articles?   people
>>versed in this issue?  Let me know.  Thanks!
>Brooke Holve
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