Font Follies

Warning: gore and some sexual innuendos.

The world headquarters of Helvotica Fonts Inc. is located in a prestigious high-rise building in the Canary Wharf district of London. A very expensive address. On this particular day in July, the reception area for the company headquarters was filled with people, each of them with a proposal or problem to discuss with Bogdan Helvotica, the CEO and founder of the company. Marie, his executive assistant, was doing what she could to organize his day and maintain civility but it was a losing battle. The font business, in general, had a reputation for aggressiveness and bad behavior.

Bogdan was ensconced in his office, leaning back in his desk chair, and smoking his first Cuban cigar of the day. He was readying himself for the usual chaos of the day, dressed in his three-piece, bespoke tweed suit and displaying his iconic Van Dyke beard. Unfortunately, he also had a nagging perception that there was a cloud hanging over his head on that particular day. He thought that something bad was going to happen but he had no inkling about what it would be. He was trying to prepare himself psychologically for the worst despite his nonchalant mien. 

“It has been a great month, in spite of all,” he mumbled to himself. “Revenue is up, expenses are down.” Meanwhile, he was reading the trade rag, Global Font News, and chuckling about the latest set of calumnies hurled at him and his company by one of its columnists. She was once again making fun of his font’s tight apertures. This is a technical term relating to the openings in the various letters in the font, particularly relevant to Helvotica. He was sure the readers of the publication were losing patience over her constant goading. “This will backfire on her in the end.”

“I, more than anyone, understand that no font can please everyone. All of these critics need to look at the big picture. Helvotica is everywhere in the world — it’s ubiquitous, No one can escape it. Fonts are the essence of modern printing and now, even more, the Internet. I need to ignore my critics and proceed with the business of the day.”

***

“Marie," he shouted through the door to his secretary, "what business do you have for me to launch my day?”

“Mr. Helvotica, I have your COO on the phone.” 

Bogdan picked up the receiver and said. “How an I help you, Cecil?”

“Unfortunately, Sir, we have a serious shortage of the dots used for our ‘i’ letters and I am at my wit’s end about how to solve it. As you know and as a cost-savings measure, we outsourced all of our dot manufacturing to China some years ago. In so doing, we were able to reduce our costs by more than half. The Asian dots are indistinguishable from the EU ones, except perhaps by an expert, so we thought it was a good direction for our business.” 

“Unfortunately, we now have five shipping containers filled with dots sitting on the Shanghai docks, waiting for transit to Long Beach. If we don’t receive them in a week or so, our dot inventory will be exhausted and all of our i’s will be printed without hats, so to speak. Please excuse my jocular reference. How do you suggest that we solve this problem?”

“I think that we encountered a similar situation about ten years ago when our previous dot supplier fell behind in shipping our orders. Cecil, can you please check our current inventory records while we speak. What does our colon supply in the warehouse looks like?”

Cecil replied: “We have more than a year’s supply of colons, Sir.”

“OK. Send half of our colons from the warehouse to our rework line with instructions to split each of them in half to produce the dots that we lack. If my math skills remain as sharp as usual, this will create twice as many dots as the number of colons sent for change. This should solve our dot shortage until our shipping and supply problem is resolved.”

“Thanks so much for your advice and successful solution,” Cecil replied and hung up the phone. 

***

“What’s next,” he shouted through the door to Marie.

She replied: “We have Señora Verdena who has been waiting to see you for an hour,” escorting a beautiful Spanish woman of aristocratic bearing and beauty into the office. She was the founder and designer of a minor font rival called, logically, Verdena.

“How can I help you this morning, Consuela?” he said, launching the conversation in a gracious manner, befitting her status and reputation in the industry.

“Bogdan, I will get right to the point. The Public Services Ministry in my home country, Spain, is choosing a font for the signage of the public toilets in the country. The final candidates for the project are Verdena and Helvotica. It’s a close call. As you know, Verdana is designed to improve readability in small text that provides an advantage for the discrete signs used in public accommodations." An opportunity was presenting itself for Bogdan and he vowed to not miss it this time around.

“I could be persuaded to tilt the contract in your direction, Consuela,” he said to her and she nodded in a positive way. However, he was thinking to himself that perhaps there was a risk in having his font too closely associated with Spanish bodily functions. Also, perhaps there was still some personal gain to be had in this deal.

He continued: “Why don’t the two of us have dinner in my favorite restaurant in London tonight to discuss your proposal further. We could then perhaps pop over to my apartment to continue our discussion in a more relaxed way.”

Consuela gulped. She had not anticipated that there would be such a steep price to be paid, with particular attention lavished on Bogdan’s !. Where she would draw the line was the question uppermost in her mind. She came to a conclusion immediately.

“Sounds good, Bogdan. Why don’t you pick me up at my hotel at 8:00 tonight.” Señora Verdena left the office without offering her cheek for the common European departure smooch.

***

His secretary tapped lightly on his door in the continuing saga of his busy day. “I have Norman Ariel waiting to see you. I am sure that you will want to meet with him right away,” she said softly but ominously. 

As the American entered, Bogdan made note of the fact, as always, that he was wearing an inexpensive, off-the-shelf version of his own, well-known tweed suit. His facial hair was also a crude imitation of Bogdan’s own goatee. All of this befitting Ariel as a mere clone of Helvotica and unworthy of much attention.

Norman began to speak as soon as he sat down in the office chair. “Bogdan, we have decided to compete with Helvotica Fonts in a more aggressive way. As you well know, my Ariel font is tightly linked with two of the largest companies in the U.S. They are both worth billions and serious competitors. You have become a distraction for us and are causing a disruption in our business plan."

"I come to you today with a final offer for us to purchase your company. I am holding in my hand the legal documents to make this merger a reality. It’s take it or leave it, Bogdan. I won’t be back with an offer of any kind.”

Bogdan tried but was not successful in stifling his contempt for both Norman and the product that he represented. 

“Ariel is a gauche clone of my font with backing by two American companies that I personally do not respect. So typical of the Americans to copy rather than create. We Europeans are only interested in, and invest in, authenticity. Your goal has always been to create a cheap knock-off of the real thing. I am going to bury you so get ready for a real fight.”

Marie appeared suddenly as Norman hurriedly gathered his papers and coat. He quickly headed for the door without looking backwards. Bogdan, pleased with himself, grabbed another Cuban cigar to light up.

***

“Bogdan, I now have a call from you from our friend Luigi in Naples,” his secretary called into his office. Bogdan picked up the receiver. 

“Luigi, great to hear from you. How’re tricks,” thinking perhaps afterwards that this was not the best question for the most powerful consigliere in the global Mafia.

“Bogdan,” he responded. “We want to increase the dollar volume of our kidnapping line and we think that you can help us. We have come to realize that creating our kidnap ransom notes by cutting out the letters from newspapers has become an efficiency drag and, I might add, a bit of a cliche. We want to commission you to create a special kidnap font. You would then provide us with an exclusive license for its use. That way, the local polícia will know we mean business during any kidnapping job and subsequent ransom note."

“Sure!” Bogdan replied. “We will take the project on the same terms as we negotiated before and with the same amount deposited in my Swiss banking account as before.”

“No problem. As always, thanks for doing business with my organization,” Luigi responded and hung up the phone.

***

After a moment’s brief pause, the door was rapidly opened by his CEO, Frederick, who was in a high state of anxiety. 

“Here it comes,” Bogdan muttered to himself. "This is what I have been worried about all day."

“Bogdan,” he said. “We have a serious crisis on our hands. Do you remember our marketing victory with KocaKola? After 120 years of business, they decided to abandon their script logo and replace it with Helvotica font. Their thinking on this matter this was that their traditional one was looking fussy and dated.”

“I remember this with total clarity,” Bogdan replied. “It was a marketing victory for us and helped to establish our font as the global leader. Have they decided to revert back to their script logo?”

“Not yet but I am anticipating this at any moment,” he replied.

“What possibly can have gone wrong? Their marketing campaign was flawless.”

“I am far too nervous to tell you what just happened,” Frederick replied.

“Spit it out, man. I don’t have all day,” Bogdan almost shouted.

“OK, Bogdan, but you are not going to be happy about this. A holiday parade in New York City to celebrate Independence Day has just taken place. A posse of cowboys on horseback was riding down Fifth Avenue with crowds on both sides of the street. It was a windy day and one of the Koke signs was blown off the front of a restaurant during the parade. The sign flew over the street and landed directly on the head of one of the horseback riders. Totally a freak accident.”

“And……,” Bogdan urged Frederick to continue with his story.

“Do you remember the tight aperture complaints about our font? Well, one of the O’s in the Koke sign enveloped the head of one of the riders.”

“And……,” Bogdan breathlessly urged Frederick to continue.

“Well,” Frederick said in response, “the sign seems to have totally nipped his head off, propelled by the high wind.”

“Oh my God,” Bogdan responded. “We’re now in uncharted territory, business-wise.”

“There’s a tiny, tiny bit more to the story,” Frederick continued.

“The horse continued to trot down the street and the headless rider remained upright in the saddle for about another mile, held in place by his stirrups. Reports say that there may have been abundant blood spattered around.”

Bogdan hurried his head in his hands. “There can’t be any more to this story, I hope,” he blurted out to Frederick.

“Not really, Bogdan, other than the fact that the global media are now referring to the horseback rider as the Headless Horseman of Helvotica. I have no idea where they came up with this phrase. They certainly did not check with us for permission to use our trademark.”

***

Bogdan shouted out through the doorway to Marie, his secretary. "Get me Norman Ariel on the phone. He’s hopefully still in his hotel room before his departure for the US."

The phone rang and he picked up the receiver. 

“This is Norman Ariel. Who’s calling?”

“Norman, baby, Bogdan here. I assume you will be shortly on your way to Heathrow. Well, I have been musing about our conversation earlier in the day and I now have concluded that, as you suggested, there may be substantial merit in your purchase of my company, mostly on your terms, of course.”

“Sorry, Bogdan, I am a little distracted right now by a story that popped up on the Web about a recent parade in New York involving a Koke sign in Helvotica font. Have you heard about this incident by any chance? It looks like the story has some traction and may persist in the news for a while. This can’t be good for your ‘European’ reputation.”

CLICK.