Another reason we need to welcome messes

Would you rather hang out with three friends or two friends and a stranger?Is it more fun to read Helvetica font or Comic Sans? If you had to perform onstage, would you ever do so knowing your instrument would be out of tune?

I don't know any reasonable person who enjoys the awkwardness these situations bring. If you're typical, you avoid messes. It's how people roll.

We resist disruptions. We despise randomness. We try to ban ugly fonts.

Fortunately, when we DO encounter a mess, something good happens: we solve problems.  You'll see that's the point of this TED talk; we need to embrace the uncomfortable, crazy, and icky.

If you don't have 15 minutes to watch the whole talk now, save it for later since the message builds its case over the time.

I hope you find it fascinating.

Pick up a book, magazine or screen, and more than likely you'll come across some typography designed by Matthew Carter. In this charming talk, the man behind typefaces such as Verdana, Georgia and Bell Centennial (designed just for phone books -- remember them?), takes us on a spin through a career focused on the very last pixel of each letter of a font.

But do I really need to start reading Comic Sans??