Message = [ostensible content] + [subtext] : subtext = [context x (appearance+tone+style)]

And style includes fonts.

This morning I sent off a package to Conville & Walsh. I have a sort of love affair with the agency which represents me, because they are a fantastic bunch of people and the hiring policy there must be some kind of smoked mirror of my brain. Also, pretty much everyone who works there is hot. The place is a ridiculous concentration of literary foxiness and agenticular acumen. And I found myself thinking:

“Obviously, I can’t send this parcel with a drab font. It ought to be something more fun.”

I don’t know where it came from. In general, when I send them things by courier or post – which doesn’t happen very often, because almost everything is electronic these days – I just hand-write the label or use Times New Roman, which is my default setting for anything. On the rare occasions that Times New Roman feels inappropriate, I use Trebuchet.

And yet, not today.

Today I went through the entire gamut of possibilities available to me. I really wanted that address label to express a sort of glee. I wanted C&W to share in my feeling that this glorious, slightly cool September day is the first of an exciting new moment, an autumn of goodness and energy.

Trebuchet just wasn’t going to give me that.

In the end, I used Plantagenet Cherokee. It feels unusual without being ridiculous. I wanted a font of substance, not some Comic Sans wannabe…

I went through a lot of possibilities, people. I really did.

So I propose that there is, or should be, a Language of the Fonts, just as there was a Language of the Flowers and a Language of Stones. How superb to be able to send a covert message concealed in the choice of typeface. How fascinating to treat fonts like gemstones and conceal an actual text within a selection of letters from different fonts: to hide ‘desire’ in a sequence of characters printed in Didot Euphemia Sathu InaiMathi Ribbon131 and Exotc350! To chastise an errant correspondent by means of a drab sans serif. (“You’re not worthy of my elaborate typefaces, you regrettable worm!”)

Let the crypto-romances commence! Let the bible of flirtation be The Elements of Typographic Style! Let discussions of text come to fisticuffs and hearts break over a well-placed Verdana or an absent Helvetica!

Let there be a Language of the Fonts!