On Legibility

If you know two things about letter-lovers, then you know this: one, we are unequivocally a blast at parties. Comic Sans? Not that bad! I once met the designer, and he was very pleasant. It’s the users that are to blame—the font is perfectly suited for use as the jaunty voice of a pixelated dog. And two, we carry strong opinions about legibility.

For just about any job, designers will choose a typeface that makes it easy for the reader to understand the content. Bonus points may be awarded if the type conveys a certain mood, builds a sense of trust, or creates a feeling of approachability. There is usually little to be gained from making text harder for users to navigate, unless, of course, you are trying to obscure your identity, say, for a ransom note. In which case, wear gloves?

The world at large is designed with similar goals, and for good reason. We want our spaces, rules, and cultural norms to be straightforward and broadly understood. It makes sense evolutionarily that we would find comfort in things that feel familiar and, perhaps, even predictable.

But like many an existential, self-employed person, the lines between my work and my personal beliefs are increasingly blurry. I’m not especially proud to admit it, but I suspect I am not alone in being concerned with how I read to the world. For many of us, sticking too far out from the norm can draw unwanted attention. Like proofing a text typeface, there’s a lot of pressure to fall in line with median values, to blend together cohesively, to not disrupt the flow.

I feel this pressure even here in Portland, where we have strictly outlawed the dangerous, cisgender, heterosexual community (call 1-800-STR8-H8R if you suspect a neighbor!). Even here, I do—obnoxiously—still want to present myself queerly to the world. It helps us find each other in the wild, and I feel much more excited to inhabit my flesh prison when the outside more closely matches the inside. Granted, not everyone is as excited about raging homosexuals as I am, and, inevitably, insecurities crop up. Looking at media attitudes and cultural shifts around LGBTQIA+ folks globally, it can feel tempting to shrink. But who benefits from the limiting of our expression? Can it sometimes be useful to fiddle with the dials of readability, to make an audience work at understanding something? To not be designed explicitly for easy, mass consumption?

It’s a battle I weigh often performing in drag. I know it’s obvious, but the presentation of my ideas and my entire person have a tremendous impact on how a number lands with an audience. With drag—as with type—so much depends on the environment. A font intended to be used at ten feet tall feels out of place in eight-point running text, in much the same way that a nightclub act hits differently in the unforgiving fluorescent lights of an all-ages brunch.

Even in drag circles, even on this Island of Misfit Toys, I can’t seem to help being a weirdo. I have numbers where I’m dressed as a praying mantis, or a plastic bag, or a giant pink rotary phone—and while it’s not what everyone expects in drag spaces, it’s made the impact I hoped it would. Pushing the norm is important, even if there are times when we must adjust the context. The eccentricities of exuberant display fonts have influenced even more modest text styles. But it’s the strange stuff that is often the most memorable. We all have workhorse fonts we adore, but I’ll be lusting after Roger Excoffon’s Calypso until the day I die.

So, here’s what drag reminds me: it’s equal parts terrifying and exhilarating to wear your ideas on your sleeve (even more so on your face and your heels), but it has galvanized innumerable self-truths, and I wish I’d started it sooner. Drag catalyzed this idea that, intentionally or not, our existence serves as a permission slip for others. Seeing oddities like Leigh Bowery and Klaus Nomi was the fuel in my tank to start drag, even if it took time to ferment and actualize. So, earnestly, I think it’s our responsibility to challenge norms. To give audiences something to chew on. To leave the world more open to possibilities than we found it.