MoMA acquires 23 digital typefaces for its collection

Font makers, designers, and type nerds will all tell you a well-designed typeface is a work for art. It seems the Museum of Modern Art agrees. The Museum has recently acquired 23 digital typefaces for it’s Architecture and Design Collection. The fonts ranges from bitmap-y Oakland (designed on the first Apple Macintosh) to good o’l Verdana (which was created specifically to be read on a screen), and even includes Walker, designed exclusively for Minnesota’s own Walker Art Gallery.

Wondering how a museum acquires a typeface for its collection? Well Jason Kottke has the answer. Spoiler alert: It involves a lot of legal license wrangling and talk about how to keep a digital work in perpetuity:

“Digital artworks are prone to different kinds of damage than physical ones, but obsolescence is no less damaging to a typeface than earthquakes and floods to a painting.”