Disturbance

Designer: Jeremy Tankard

FF Disturbance is Jeremy Tankard's answer to a number of well-known typographers before him who advocated the simplification of the alphabet structure in order to enhance readability. Our present writing system is a composite of two systems: Roman upper case letters and medieval lower case ones. With FF Disturbance, Tankard took on the challenge of creating a new, alphabet that combined the upper and lower case forms more harmoniously. His idea was to select the most extreme letter shapes, the best of both worlds, and put them into one alphabet to achieve maximum legibility. His response to the ongoing debate about legibility is that the visual rhythm of the text is a vital consideration. "There is a theory that people only read what they want to read. If good rhythm makes a face flow well, then the reading becomes much easier." This fascination with typographic rhythm stems from Tankard's fascination iwth musical composition. FF Disturbance also contains many ligatures that both add "color" to the typeface and assists in its flow and rhythmic patterning. Since the capital forms are used for the characters B, D and H, there are fewer ascenders, thus creating new word shapes. The increased ascenders of K and L, plus the use of the ligatures recreate the vertical movement within the type. This counteracts the monotonous appearance of capitals within a block of text. As soon as it was published, many critics voiced their acclaim for FF Disturbance...well, except for the deisgner's mum who, he says, "...thinks it's too difficult."