The Crystal Goblet

Warde's five-page essay, originally delivered as a lecture to the British Typographers' Guild, offers the clearest metaphor for what good typography is: a crystal goblet that lets you see the wine, as opposed to a golden chalice that calls attention to itself. The argument is for transparency — that the purpose of typographic design is to transmit thought without the reader becoming aware of the medium. It is a position, not a truth, and designers have argued against it ever since, but the metaphor has proven impossible to escape. Warde wrote with the authority of someone who was the publicity manager of the Monotype Corporation and understood type as an industrial product, not an art object. The essay is freely available online and can be read in ten minutes, which is part of its power: it practices the economy it preaches.