Be fascinated more than you fear…

I’m reading Just My Type, by Simon Garfield, a book about fonts. Any type geek will love this book–lots of silly and serious stories about letters we see regularly. A particular paragraph struck me. The author was writing about Zuzana Licko and her partner Rudy VanderLane. The two run the Font/Design House Emigre–and she is the designer behind Mrs. Eaves, definitely one of the more elegant Sans Serif faces. (Mrs. Eaves was named for John Baskerville’s housekeeper who later became his wife. learn more about the typeface history here.)

Licko is one of the few women type designers, (aside–why is that? no one seems to have a good answer…) In Just My Type she quotes Matthew Carter, that when one is designing a typeface it’s import to “find the fascination greater than the frustration.” Anyone who has designed a typeface from the ground up knows this to be true.

But this could be true for any creative/technical process. What fascinates you more than you fear it?