Jack’s been to the national

“And the interesting thing about Just van Rossum’s FF Confidential font,” the speaker said, “is its recent use in a campaign against piracy. I say interesting, because it was used without permission, thus piratic use of a font in a campaign against piracy.” 

Dr Simone paused for laughter, which came in the form of a mirthless mumble from the hundred or so people in the conference.   

Jack was starting to be puzzled.  The poster had promised a talk by the National Front, an organisation Jack believed would make England great again, but all the speaker had talk about was fonts.  

“Are there any questions at this stage?” Dr Simone said. 

Jack raised his hand.  

Dr Simone scanned the audience and pointed to Jack.  

“Yes, the bald man in the St George’s flag T shirt.” 

“What do you think about putting Britons first?” Jack said, though he was worried that his question wouldn’t be heard, as he was a long way from the stage.  

“Ah, interesting,” said Dr Simone, “A question on the first Britain Sans font, if I heard correctly.”  He pressed on before Jack could interject. “I have done a great deal of research on this.  I think I’ve got a slide somewhere.”  He flicked through the powerpoint presentation, ending at a slide of a letter A.  “This is it,” Dr Simone continued, “The Britain Sans launched seven fonts in 2021.  The first of these, the Britain first if you like, being the Britain Humanist font.  Here we see the letter ‘a’, you can see the distinctive flick of the tail, and the almost circular centre.” 

“I’m afraid that doesn’t directly answer your question, but that is the first of the Britain Sans fonts.  Was there anything else?” he said, again directing the question at Jack. 

“Do you agreed that England should be for the English?” Jack said. Again he was worried that the question wouldn’t be heard.  

“Ah Englund. That’s an interesting question,” Dr Simone said.  “The Englund font. I have a slide to illustrate that as well.”  Again he played with the images on the powerpoint, before settling on an image of the letter ‘s’.  “This font was developed by the Professor Heinrich Englund, from Austria. If you take a look at the picture here, we can see the distinctive extended twirl on the tail of the ‘s’.”   

Jack took out his leaflet and re-read it.  'National Font talk by Dr Jans Simone. National Font, not National Front. This was why the talk was all about fonts, not making Britain great again. He took a look around the room, how stupid he’d been, this wasn’t aimed at him at all, everyone else was dressed in suits and smart shirts. He was in the wrong place.   

Jack started getting up to leave, but then, for no reason he could pinpoint, decided to remain, as dull as the speaker was, there was something interesting about the topic.  

Jack stayed to the end. More than that, he enjoyed it thoroughly. He enjoyed the pleasure the speaker expressed, pleasure in nothing more than the way letters were drawn, a form of art Jack had never even knew existed. 

Pleasure.  He’d just had no time for it since he’d taken up with the right-wing groups on the internet.  It was all hate. Hate and anger. Whereas this talk, it was pure joy.  Ridiculous joy about nothing remotely important. He loved how the same word could look so different, and how individual designers had spent their life’s work making their own version of the alphabet.  

He would never again look at a page of writing, whether on a page or a website, without focusing on the font used, the image the words formed as they worked their meaning.  

By the end of the talk Jack had decided he was going to take up a design course to find out more about fonts, and in design generally. This was his world now. He loved the idea of being able to shape reality through shapes.

As he left, Jack was approached by a skinhead in a union jack T-shirt, who'd clearly sat through the same talk. 

“Thank God,” the man said. “I thought I was the only one here.  England for the English!” He followed this with a Nazi salute, seemingly unaware that Nazi salutes weren’t English. 

“You’ve come to the wrong talk,” Jack said. “This isn’t for the likes of you.”