L337 P0575

In an article written by Beatrice Warde in 1932, Miss Warde compares good wines to good typography, quoted: "almost all the virtues of a perfect wine glass have a parallel in typography".

She begins by asking the reader whether or not they would select an elaborate golden grail or a delicate, pure wine glass that is crystal clear and colourless to drink their wine from. She claimed that, at the time, most people would chose the elaborate goblet, rather than the clear thin glass because it is the sensation of drinking the wine out of something so expensive and rich. She says that only a few would chose the thin delicate wine glass to drink from, the "vanishing tribe. . . [of] the amateurs of fine vintages", because those are the people who would rather see the beauty of the contents, then dress it up to make it look appealing.
The structure of the glass in which you drink the wine from is as important as the structure of the page in which you type the words on. If there is no structure in the glass, the wine will spill; if there is no structure in the page, the type will not be balanced. I think her ideology is very interesting and quite applicable. Fine wine lovers would definitely relate to the fact that a wine glass can even effect the taste of the wine, and to see the colour of the wine is equally as important. Basically, to be De Stijl about this, abstracting or simplifying the wine to its purest form without any decoration reveals how beautiful and elegant it is on its own. The same with type.

 The design in which I chose to do (as seen above) incorporates this quote with a fine font, and a glass of fine wine; it is attempting to be simple, using merely type and a stock image of a wine glass found on google... plus some added vignetting for a more "elegant" feel.... although my typography could be fixed somewhat.