So I’ve always been a whole hearted believer in learning by osmosis. Be around it long enough and you’ll figure it out. It’s about effort. But I have to say that this idealistic view of acquiring knowledge has, I’m sad to admit, finally failed me.

I blame it on the field of typography - the target to my osmosis arrow. I’d like to think that I’m not completely void of insight when it comes to typefaces. I can understand the top level emotions and I get concepts like weight and movement. For a copywriter, that’s plenty? But I’m fascinated by typography, about how much it can change what is being said. That being said, it mostly goes over my head.

Typographica recently described the curve on the cross stroke of the t in the picture post above as “clever.”

Please, someone explain that to me. Abstract adjectives like that just don’t seem to belong. I plan on making a career out of finding the right adjective, so I’m sure “clever” was the result of a thought process. But typography doesn’t make it easy on us laymen.