Random musings.

When I open the single-spaced template in Word, it presents with Calibri eleven-point type. In spite of Calibri’s vaunted ability to save ink, it is a type-face that I do not like. I am not sure why. Maybe because it has less weight than Arial. (It has less weight than Arial.) Maybe just because I have used Arial so often that it is an old and familiar friend. It is easier to read and proof in a familiar font, I find. The other choice is, of course, Times New Roman (Times New Roman), a more ornate but equally familiar type-face. Also easier on ink. In these days of climate change, I guess I should be saving ink.

It seems as if I am saving a lot of stuff. We use as little plastic as we can. That is not easy. I wanted a replacement head for my electric tooth brush on my last shopping trip. The brand I use had three replacement heads stuffed into a clam shell. When I opened the clam shell, each brush had its own plastic wrapper. That is ridiculous! The toilet paper I purchased was also double wrapped, causing me to make a note not to buy that brand again. I lug into the grocery store cloth bags and the flimsy plastic bags that are dispensed in rolls in the vegetable section. But even there you find annoyances such as carrots on styrofoam wrapped in plastic wrap. And a frustrating range of products is only available in plastic containers.

We also recycle. Given that ants love where we live, I carefully wash everything that goes into the recycle in the hope (vain, alas) of discouraging the wretched things. Last year my favourite brand of ant trap was dispensed in plastic instead of metal. This year I am switching brands – if I can find one in metal, that is. We recycle the bags in which the recycle collection is transported to the dump. (No garbage collection out here in the bush.) Our local village has a shop where you can take things to be recycled and, at one dump location, there is a very comprehensive reuse facility where you can drop everything from clothing to books to electronics. And yesterday I saw a neighbour collecting drink cans along the verge of the road. People who do that deserve a lot of praise and thanks.

I note that none of the above has anything to do with the type-faces I set out to write about. Seems I am a bear of little brain tonight. I love the fact that there are so many available in Word. (We will have to see what happens when I transfer this to Blogger.) There are even more available in CorelDRAW, the program I use to make posters and cards and all that sort of thing. Mostly though, the fancy type-faces seem to me to need to be used very sparingly. As headlines, if they are legible or for emphasis. I create custom graphics for people, and recall once being asked to put a whole three paragraph explication into cursive script. I did that, but with reservations and only after trying to talk the client out of it. I wager it was not thoroughly read.

Before I get carried away, I am about to see if this will transfer into Blogger. So far, so good. Blogger itself gives seven choices of body font and a lot more for headings and such. You will never find me far from Arial, however. And no ink was wasted in the formation of this post.