He didn’t invent the Internet, but Al Gore does have the power to redesign typefaces at will. Typotheque, the foundry that created Brioni, recently got an interesting call from the designers of Gore’s upcoming climate-change book, Our Choice. The pages were being laid out in Brioni, and the former VP had a teeny problem with it:
“Basically, he wants you to change the numeral one.”
“Interesting”, I said. “And how did he come to this conclusion?”
“Well, in the book there’re a lot of examples of scientific nomenclature and this particular numeral one is causing confusion when it’s combined with capitals.”
Sure enough, Gore was right. So Typotheque changed its typeface—not just for Gore, but everyone who uses it.
Now if only Gore could rid the world of Papyrus. Or implement a cap and trade system to phase out Comic Sans…