Here is a fascinating but surely flawed list from the Wall Street Journal. American recruitment specialists Careercast have listed 200 jobs, rating them from best to worst. They took into consideration working environment, stress, physical demands and job prospects. Where you think a newspaper reporter came? Top ten probably, top 50 without a doubt? No, a hack's job is 188th, behind a dishwasher, maid, ad rep, garbage collector, mail carrier (postman to you and me), barman, janitor and waiter. Photojournalists do marginally better at no 185. A publication editor is ranked 80th, a photographer 144th and, most bizarrely, a typesetter/compositor comes in at 120th. The full list makes no mention of copy-editors (subs to you and me). The report goes on to say that the jobs in the bottom 20 (which include reporters and photojournalists) tend to suffer from a combination of fatal flaws – low salaries, difficult working conditions, serious risk of injury or death, and poor employment prospects over the coming years. Wow. I appreciate things have been tough of late - but a reporter's job worse than being a waiter or a dishwasher? Mind you, it could be worse still. You could be a compiler of dubious lists.
A couple of issues have the typographical world hot under its collective collar this week. The purists are particularly upset at the poor typography on the iPad ... just four fonts in iBooks and full justification with hyphenation the only option. The fonts on the iPhone 4G, Helvetica and Arial, have also come in for a pasting with some commentators even arguing (gasp) that Microsoft is better than Apple. A huge debate has grown up from the initial posting on The Font Feed and a piece entitled Better Screen, Same typography. It's all a bit surprising that Apple should be criticised for typography, given that it was the Mac that pioneered desktop publishing and turned everyone into a potential typographers. Hopefully, given that the type types, have been doing their best to crash Twitter with their outrage, Apple will be stung into action in time for the next generation of gizmos.
Equally alarming, though, is the Wall Street Journal's decision to use Comic Sans on a news headline this week (albeit on a story about a cartoonist). As you probably know Comic Sans is the most vilified of fonts. There is even a Ban Comic Sans campaign and, should you be minded, you can buy t-shirts declaring your hatred for the Microsoft font. The comments on Typophile about the WSJ's lapse include 'the barbarians have breached the gates and made it inside the walls of the city' and 'heads should roll'. Microsoft better than Apple? Comic Sans in the WSJ? Sounds like Armageddon to me.
