Tastebuds have feelings, too.

What are the odds that, after being well for 3 years straight, you have a flu on your birthday?

My flu began the day before my “beatific” birthday, and ended the day after. It was beatific all right. (thanks conan for that)

It’s like a sandwich, no? More cucumbers, more onions, more Chipotle Southwest and those black circular mushrooms (which, by the way, look like bread fungus compressed into many tiny blackcurrent lozenges) please. Oh, and a Macadamia with peanut butter cookie. Small cup, yes. No, I didn’t add extra cheese.

So yeah. I’m going to spend my birthday post on my new-found fascination with those prescription medicines.

One of the sins which pharmaceutical firms commit is their penchant for producing medicines either as tiny as possible (so you fumble and it drops off the table and you just can’t be bothered and just pop another out of those aluminium things), or as ugly as possible (hands up – those who think that the yellow-red capsules are pretty). It’s either this or that.

Then there’s those with drowsy effeczzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Oh, oh, those which pretend to cure you, but never do. Cough medicines are especially famous for this. I couldn’t sleep on the night of my birthday thanks to a whopping cough which – and you should take this less metaphorically – shook the bed.

But I think the worst, most unforgivable sin any pharmaceutical firm can commit is to make a cough syrup doused with “strawberry” or “blueberry” flavouring. Nothing can beat it. It’s stunningly revolting  – first, the texture is gooey and slides down your throat like an eel, which makes you squirm in your frame. Then the taste – good lord, the taste - attacks your tongue and all the taste-buds haplessly attached to it. You use your tastebuds to enjoy magical food, and now just because they have signed a MOU to remain on your body, you abuse the very organs which give you the glorious sensations. Tastebuds have feelings too.

CAT Syndrome

No matter how nicely you format your report or presentation or portfolio, someone’s bound to ask,

Is that Calibri?

or perhaps,

Did you use Arial?

and otherwise,

You used Times New Roman right? What font size?

Most of our understanding of what constitutes a beautiful or user-friendly font theme or style comes from Microsoft Word’s default formatting or our friends, the majority of whom invariably uses Microsoft’s default formatting.

It’s time that we changed some of that. The ugliness of and the ignorance surrounding the use of this “mainstream” variety fonts is unacceptable. We can overcome this through a proper cultivation of taste, beginning with a brief introduction of what makes a font practical and polished simultaneously.

The following are 3 categories of fonts which are readily used by a generic audience, and comprises at least 5 of my favourite fonts. Each of them have wonderful flavour, and each glyph (character) carries with it character and accomplishment. A word of caution: use them appropriately, use them well. Don’t ever abuse a font.

(For easy reference and high-quality zoom, use the pdf instead.)

*Simple Sophistication fonts are fully interchangeable.