But most designers treat type like furniture. Safe sans-serifs. Clean alignments. Kerning until it looks “balanced.” That is not design. That is housekeeping. It produces layouts that are tidy, professional, and completely dead inside. And clients love it, because dead is easy to approve. Dead does not scare anyone. But dead does not sell.

The greats know type is voice. They understand that choosing a typeface is not an aesthetic decision. It is a moral one. The wrong typeface can neuter your message. The right one can burn it into memory like a scar. That is why Helvetica is not neutral. It is design on Ambien. It is cardboard, white bread, polite background noise. And polite never haunts anyone.

Typography is sex, violence, and silence holding hands. It is Garamond whispering against your neck. It is Neue Haas Grotesk shouting in your face. It is a word breaking across a line like a gunshot. Every curve and counter is a choice with consequences. And if your choices don’t hurt a little, you are not making them with conviction.

Stop chasing “legibility.” Stop treating letters like shapes that need to fit neatly into boxes. Make them bleed. Make them scream. Make them seduce. Because in the end, type is not about what people read. It is about what they feel before they even start.

Typography is not math. It is mood. And mood is what makes them remember.