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When you buy something, I bet you want it to work. Heck, even if you use something for free — maybe borrowed from a friend — I bet you want it to work. No one prefers hiking boots that are too tight (or too loose), a car that shimmies when you drive faster than 40 miles an hour, or a kitchen knife that can’t cut a tomato. And Web designers don’t prefer fonts that don’t fit a project, fall apart in different browsers or can’t be used in a mock-up.
We also don’t like wading through all of the fonts that won’t work for us in order to find the ones that will. It takes precious time away from other tasks and responsibilities.
Six years ago, A List Apart published “CSS @ Ten: The Next Big Thing,” in which Håkon Wium Lie describes the @font-face declaration and announces:
“Two things must happen before Web fonts can take web design to the next level… First, we must ensure the validity of the approach.… Second, we must convince browser makers to add support for web fonts.”
Today, browsers support Web fonts, and we’ve got the valid CSS to make the fonts work. Of course, as old browsers changed and new browsers (and extended font families) emerged, valid CSS became an ever-moving target.
On the DIY side, a big “Thank you!” to Paul Irish, who gave us the “Bulletproof Syntax” to fool Internet Explorer (IE) into loading the correct font file (remember using a smiley face for the local font name?); to Richard Fink, who gave us “Mo’ Bulletproofer Syntax” to fix a font-loading problem in Android; and to Ethan Dunham, who gave us the “Fontspring @font-face Syntax,” which even works in IE 9. You all thoroughly explained why your syntax works, which enabled each to pick up where the other left off. On top of that, Dunham, your @font-face generator brought valid syntax to those of us who (please, I beg of you) just want our fonts to work.
Web font hosts such as Typekit and Fontdeck deserve a shout out, too. You worked to support multiple weights and styles of a font family cross-browser. Your variation-specific font-family names (which is a shorter and sweeter way of saying, “Hey everyone, you need to use a unique font-family name for each weight and style of a family”) require longer CSS, but they are valid and allow more than four weights and styles to load in IE 7 and 8. Those of us who can’t live without light, regular, bold, extra bold, and black weights are in Web font heaven!
One aspect that Lie missed in his article was the need for more Web fonts — how could we take Web design to the next level if we didn’t have a lot of fonts to use? This, of course, meant that you had to gain the trust of the type design community.
You had to protect the fonts.
Remember when type designers wouldn’t design or provide Web fonts without the guarantee that their files were secure? Typekit, your article “Serving and Protecting Fonts on the Web” (2009) laid out how you set up hurdles to “discourage casual misuse” and created a reasonably secure system for serving fonts.
Thanks to everyone’s tenacity, at some point in the last four years, “reasonably secure” was enough for type designers to take a chance. And now they’re hooked. In a recent interview, Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones of H&FJ said: “We’re requiring that every new project have a way to thrive not only on paper, but on desktop and mobile screens.” How freaking awesome is that?
So, in the span of only six years, you’ve come a long way, baby. Web font syntax is valid and supported by most browsers (our fonts load!); we have thousands of Web fonts to work with; we have multiple options to deliver Web fonts (DIY or through a service provider; and free, monthly, yearly or a one-time purchase); and you are constantly improving your services, so Web fonts are easier to implement and they (usually) load seamlessly!
What else could a Web designer need from you?
I am so glad you asked.
Web designers — especially those of us who care about type and are trying to be thoughtful about the fonts we use — need more than access to thousands of Web fonts. Frankly, we need access to high-quality, appropriate Web fonts. And we need to be able to find them.
We’ve visited your websites. Some of you have thousands of fonts for us to use. But you know what? More isn’t always better. Sometimes more becomes more-stuff-to-wade-through-to-find-what-I-want. In 2010, a New York Times article, “Too Many Choices: A Problem That Can Paralyze,” reported on the debilitating effect of too many choices. Too many choices make it harder to choose. How do we know our choice is the best one? How do we know it’ll fit when we go for a hike? And if it does fit, how do we know another one won’t fit better?
Benjamin Scheibehenne, a research scientist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, suggests in the article that debilitation comes not only from too many choices, but also from a “lack of information or any prior understanding about the options.” Hmm. While we’re at it, how do we know it won’t shimmy on the highway?
You’ve given us thousands of Web fonts. Now give us useful information about the options. Help us understand them. Help us ascertain which ones will work best for us. Which ones will work for a particular project. Which ones hold up cross-browser. Which ones will integrate seamlessly in our workflow.
Most of you show us how your fonts will sort of look in context. You give us just enough to see whether a font might be appropriate to use (“Hmm, this one is a slab serif, so it might work.”), and you help us to eliminate those that definitely won’t work (“Nope, I don’t want such a round-looking font.”). OK, that’s a start. But that’s not enough.
Take a page from history. Before type went digital, printers and type designers sold their typefaces to clients by showing how they looked in context. They’d provide broadsides or books, often setting each typeface in paragraphs at various sizes. They’d show available weights and styles of each family. And because the specimen sheets and books were printed, publishers and designers could see how the typefaces held up when the ink hit the paper.
A specimen sheet by William Caslon, 1728. The typeface is shown in paragraphs of various sizes in both roman and italic. A larger digital image shows other fonts available in the family. If I were in the market for a typeface back in 1728, I’d know exactly what to expect from Caslon.
Not to name names, but Fontdeck, Fontspring, Font Squirrel and MyFonts, you guys only offer the opportunity to test-drive Web fonts in a sentence. The problem with a sentence is that it doesn’t show how the font looks in body copy. Body copy has visual texture, and texture can be pleasing (lively but not intrusive, promoting horizontal movement of the eye) or jarring (with uneven spaces or a strong vertical pull, hindering horizontal movement of the eye). Texture affects readability.
Texture also affects the look of a Web page, and Web designers need to know whether they are picking a font with the texture they need. A sentence doesn’t help us to make a good choice. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the images below. Two fonts that look really similar when set in a sentence look different when set in paragraphs of text.
Cascading sentences from Typekit. Top: Kepler Standard by Adobe. Bottom: Utopia Standard by Adobe. Both are serif fonts with a slightly oval bowl (look at the shape of the “o”) and a high contrast between thick and thin strokes. They look pretty similar to the casual eye. Heck, they even look pretty similar to the trained eye!
The same fonts set as text in paragraphs from Typekit. When shown in paragraph format, we can see the difference. Top: Kepler Standard by Adobe. Kepler has a rounder, “bubblier” feel and looks slightly smaller when set at body-copy sizes. Bottom: Utopia Standard by Adobe. Utopia feels more structured, less round. And, of course, it looks bigger when set at body-copy sizes. Neither of these fonts is “wrong” when set in text. But they look different in paragraphs, and each might be appropriate for different projects.
Now, for the rest of you, Google Fonts, Fonts.com, Webtype and Hoefler & Frere-Jones, you show your fonts in paragraphs. Thank you. But just so you know, not all of the paragraphs are as helpful as they could be.
Google Fonts, your text has too tight a line height, so your fonts all look clunky (see the image below). Fonts.com, you don’t offer enough text sizes; if a font looks too small at 14 pixels and too big at 18 pixels, we can’t tell what it would look like at 16 pixels (just so you know, 16 pixels is a really popular type size for Web text). Webtype, you use a string of capitalized words, so there are too many capital letters, and your fonts look clunky; if you want to show us what your fonts really look like, just use plain text. Hoefler & Frere-Jones, your paragraphs are limited to three lines, with a super-long 725-pixel line length; these paragraphs aren’t delightful to read, and they undermine the quality of your fonts.
Which font would you choose? How paragraphs are set makes a difference. Top: Google Fonts paragraphs have a tight line height. Open Sans looks clunky and hard to read, making it hard to tell whether the font would look good in body copy. Bottom: Open Sans on Typekit. A looser line height helps us to see that the same font is actually a pleasure to read.
Typekit and Typotheque, of all the Web font services I’ve visited or used, you provide the best on-site examples of how your fonts look in body copy. You both provide multiple paragraphs at various sizes, with a good line length and a good line height. WebINK, your off-site solution is also pretty good. Using the FontDropper 1000 bookmarklet, I can drop any of your fonts onto an existing Web page and see how it looks in context. One problem I noticed, though: Your bookmarklet doesn’t drop in an entire font family, so we can’t see a font’s true bold and italic.
Which brings us to font families. I’m sure you’ve noticed that bold and italic versions of a font are sometimes too similar to the regular font, which undermines hierarchy. Other times, the bold is too heavy or the italic too squished, and one or both are hard to read. These are all reasons why we might not want to use a particular font. Plus, sometimes a bold or italic has letterforms that a client simply doesn’t like.
So, to really see how a font works in context, we would need to see how the entire family of weights and styles works together. Unfortunately, none of you do this yet.
I’ve been talking a lot about context. Context is not just a font’s texture in a paragraph or how the font family works together. Context is also where a font “lives.”
As Web designers, we know that our designs are ephemeral, constantly changing based on operating system, browser and screen size. For example, we know that fonts behave differently cross-browser — if they aren’t hinted correctly, then letter shapes, strokes and letter spacing will change in unexpected ways.
If fonts aren’t hinted well, their strokes can change significantly from browser to browser. This font looked great on my Mac (top). When I tested it cross-browser, I ran into problems (bottom). The font is too light to read easily.
If fonts aren’t hinted well, then spacing (both inside and between letters) can change significantly from browser to browser. This font looked great on my Mac (top). When I tested it cross-browser, I ran into problems (bottom). The font gets narrower, and the spacing between letters is erratic.
The only way to know whether a font will work cross-browser is to test it. And let me tell you, testing Web fonts is mind-numbing and time-consuming. (I once cleaned out my garage to avoid testing fonts for a project.)
Thank you Fonts.com, MyFonts and Typekit for providing screenshots of your fonts in different browsers. You present only cascading sentences, but even that helps. Much like Caslon’s printed specimen sheet showed what his typeface looked like in print, you three give Web designers a glimpse of what your fonts look like in use. You show us which fonts to reject and which to consider for further testing.
Hoefler & Frere-Jones, you claim that your new Cloud.typography service creates multiple font files (each hinted and built for a specific browser and platform) and supplies each browser with its unique font file. If this is true, then your fonts should look great across all browsers. If this is true, I might just have to bake you some cookies. But I sure wish you’d provide screenshots to back up your claims. Some things I need to see for myself.
Some Web designers comfortably go from a pencil-and-paper wireframe to building a partial-website-as-mock-up. Others prefer (or are required) to include an intermediate step and mock up pages with a tool such as Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign.
I know — now it’s your turn to tell me to take a page from history.
Before type went digital, designers didn’t mock up projects using real fonts. Clients certainly couldn’t expect to see such a thing — comps were fine. But since the late 1980s, mock-ups have been expected to “look like the real thing.” And if we want (or need) to show a realistic mock-up to a client, we need access to the Web fonts.
Fonts.com, Font Squirrel, Google Fonts and WebINK, you all supplement Web fonts with free access to desktop (or “mock-up”) fonts for subscribers. Thank you.
Again, unfortunately, none of your solutions are perfect. Fonts.com, you allow access to mock-up fonts for only one day, to “kick off the design process.” I don’t know how it works in your office, but I can’t get anything done in one day. Font Squirrel and Google Fonts, you specialize in free fonts. While I (and my students) love having free fonts to use, access to good-quality body fonts is sort of limited. WebINK, your plugin for Photoshop is a great solution — unless a Web designer prefers to use Illustrator, InDesign or another tool.
Fontspring, MyFonts, Typotheque and Hoefler & Frere-Jones, I know you all offer bundles or discounts for purchasing both Web and desktop fonts, and bundling does take some of the pressure off a Web designer’s wallet. But if you’re a small company or an independent designer, like me, shelling out the extra money just to mock up an idea is hard.
The most promising approach for mock-up fonts might be just around the corner. Typekit, I know you’re working with Adobe Creative Cloud to bring us desktop font sync. I’ve tested it out, and I’m happy to report that it works like a charm. (OK, my old Mac laptop runs more like a tortoise than a hare when I’m running Creative Cloud — but, hey, I can turn it off when I’m not using it.)
I was cynical (who me?) about font synching actually working. I use CS6 out of the box and the free Creative Cloud membership level. But you promised me that it would work with a paid Typekit membership (which I have), and it did! The fonts even stay synced when I’m working offline. This has exciting possibilities.
I know you guys are busy, so I’ll wrap this up.
One more thing needs to happen before Web fonts can truly take Web design to the next level, and only you can do it. You need to meet the needs of the people who actually choose and use the Web fonts (ahem, Web designers).
Sure, we can all work around these issues. Personally, I’ve got a font specimen page that I use to test the fonts I’m interested in. After I narrow down the options, I can test fonts cross-browser myself. Hours later, if one of the fonts I like actually works, I can go straight to HTML and CSS from my pencil sketch and avoid the need for mock-up fonts.
But here’s the question:
“Why should we have to work around these issues?”
(All Web designers who love to use new fonts, repeat after me, “Why should we have to work around these issues?”)
If it’s important that fonts load in every browser, why isn’t it important to identify which fonts actually look good in every browser?
If it’s important to woo font designers so that you have a lot of fonts to offer, why not show us how those fonts actually work in copy?
Look, Web fonts aren’t just font files that need to be secure and easy to implement. They affect the overall look and usability of a website. They need to be chosen with care. And thanks for the thousands of fonts, but quantity is not as important as quality. A hundred knives that can’t cut a tomato won’t meet my needs when I’m making my kid a BLT.
So, make our lives a little easier. Make our work a little better. Help us find the Web fonts we want to use.
I dare say, you’ll win some affection from every Web designer who has ever looked at the thousands of Web font options and said, “Oh shit. Which one should I use?”
Sincerely yours,
P.S. In case you’re interested, I’ve summarized how you’re all doing so far. Web designers who love to use new fonts, I hope you find it useful.
P.P.S. Below you’ll find the official bibliography of the articles quoted above. Otherwise, my students would be very disappointed by my lack of scholarly detail.
(Credits of image on front page: Michael Bundscherer)
(al, ea, il)
© Laura Franz for Smashing Magazine, 2013.
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Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works…and sounds.
The web is home to thousands of sites dedicated to showcasing great design, but the majority of these are focused purely on the visual, meaning that the audible aspect of design is often overlooked.
It’s an issue that user experience designer and musician, Jordan Kolasinski, addresses with his latest project, Beyond The Beep, a blog described as “a look (and listen) at the use of sounds in user experience design”.
It’s a project that combines his love of both design and music:
Sounds from our digital devices can achieve so much – they give feedback to our actions, communicate different states of a system, talk to us when we’re not looking, and enforce the personality or brand of products. Despite their great efficiency and potential, UX sounds have a reputation of being annoying, and if their depiction in TV and film was accurate, every little thing a computer did would be accompanied by an early 1990′s-sounding beep.
From a lifelong love and study of music, I’m definitely biased towards the enormous power and communicative potential of sound. I hope to use this bias to help you appreciate the tiny music our digital devices make, and to maybe even inspire the creation of more clever and communicative sounds.
So far Jordan has analysed the sounds of products such as the iPhone, Apple TV, Skype and Facebook. Speaking of which, his analysis of the latter lead to a surprising, but delightful, discovery:
When one of your friends attempts to initiate a video chat with you, a louder “ringing” arpeggio plays and repeats. What are the notes in this sound, you may wonder? It plays the first 4 notes of the F Major 7 chord, which are – I kid you not – F, A, C and E.
Pretty cool, right? Be sure to check out the rest of Jordan’s post on Facebook’s UI sounds here.
What is your opinion of sound in UX design? Do you have any favorite examples to share? Let us know in the comments.
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I ride UMBC Transit to work every day.
Yes, I’m likely helping reduce UMBC’s carbon footprint by doing so. But what I have found over the five years that I’ve been a rider is that the feeling of virtuousness is outweighed by the camaraderie I’ve found with my fellow riders.
For a little over four years, I battled the commute by DC Metro and MARC train with the hardy group of souls who ride the Halethorpe Line and the BWI/MARC Line. Students, faculty and staff together – braving the blustery winds at the Halethorpe MARC station, or the crowded trains and inevitable commuting delays.
When I moved closer to UMBC late in 2012, I switched over to the Catonsville Line and the Arbutus Line. These lines primarily serve the off-campus housing near the university – and the eager chatter of students in multiple languages reminds me not only how diverse our campus is, but just how far many people travel to get a UMBC education.
This issue of UMBC Magazine takes sustainability as its theme. One thing that has surprised me as we have assembled this issue is how hard the university is working to overcome the history and geography that made UMBC a primarily commuter campus through much of its existence. The campus is becoming more of a community as its residential student population grows. There are more ways than ever to get to campus without being one person in one car. And the university is also coordinating efforts to become more ecologically friendly in how we dispose of our waste, heat our classrooms and offices, and construct new buildings to more exacting environmental standards.
Another surprise has been the scope of research on campus devoted to sustainability. We’ve tackled some of this research in previous issues of UMBC Magazine, but had no problem filling more than half of the space we normally allot to features with stories about the ways that UMBC faculty are pondering just how to make our city and our planet a greener place.
The magazine that you hold in your hand is also playing its part in UMBC’s sustainability efforts. Before the first issue of UMBC Magazine was published, the university decided that it would be printed on paper that was at least 50 percent postconsumer recycled (Roland Cascades Opaque). According to our suppliers, the use of this paper preserves trees (139), cuts down on the creation of solid waste (6,542 pounds worth) and prevents the release of 12, 882 pounds of net greenhouse gases.
We hope you enjoy this issue of UMBC Magazine! And perhaps enjoy it more knowing the efforts we are making to harmonize its production with UMBC’s goals to be a greener university.
— Richard Byrne ’86
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The torch has been passed at the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) – and it has been passed from one historian to another.
Scott E. Casper arrived on campus as the new dean of the CAHSS and professor of history in July, following John Jeffries, who retired and is now a professor emeritus of history and dean emeritus of the college.
Casper was the interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Nevada, Reno and a professor of history at that university, serving as chair of the department and director of graduate studies. He was also chair of the university’s faculty senate.
UMBC’s new dean of CAHSS brings with him a distinguished record in teaching and research. Casper is the author of Sarah Johnson’s Mount Vernon: The Forgotten History of an American Shrine (Hill and Wang)and Constructing American Lives: Biography and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (The University of North Carolina Press). He was named the University of Nevada, Reno Foundation Professor in 2010 and the Carnegie Endowment for the Advancement of Teaching/Council for Advancement and Support of Education Nevada Professor of the Year in 2008.
Casper received his A.B. in history from Princeton University in 1986; his M.A. and M. Phil. in American studies from Yale University in 1990; and his Ph.D. in American studies from Yale University in 1992.
– Richard Byrne ’86
Each year, the UMBC Alumni Association presents Outstanding Alumni of the Year Awards to honor alumni for their professional and personal achievements and service to the university.
The annual awards presentation ceremony – which will be held this year on Thursday, October 10 at the Albin O. Kuhn Library – is one of the highlights of UMBC Homecoming 2013.
This year’s awardees are:
Jeehye Yun ’97, computer science as Outstanding Alumnus of the Year in Engineering and Information Technology. Yun is CEO of Secured Sciences Group LLC – a successful information technology company headquartered in the bwtech@UMBC research park.
Ricardo Zwaig ’77, Spanish as Outstanding Alumnus of the Year in the Humanities. Zwaig was appointed as a district court judge in Howard County in 2010 by Governor Martin O’Malley. He was the first male Hispanic district court judge in Maryland.
Dr. Mary Loeken, M.S. ’80, biological sciences as Outstanding Alumna in the Natural and Mathematical Sciences. Loeken is a research investigator at Joslin Diabetes Center and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School whose research on diabetic pregnancy was featured in the Summer 2012 issue of UMBC Magazine.
Sherece West-Scantlebury, P.h.D. ’07, public policy as Outstanding Alumna in theSocial and Behavioral Sciences. West-Scantlebury is president and CEO of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation – a dynamic Midwestern philanthropic organization.
Brigitte Pribnow Moore ’05, acting as Outstanding Alumna in the Visual and Performing Arts. Moore is executive director of the Young Playwrights’ Theater in Washington, DC.
For more information about the awards and UMBC Homecoming 2013, visit our website: http://homecoming.umbc.edu/
– Jenny O’Grady and Richard Byrne ’86
Over the past two decades, UMBC has grown by leaps and bounds as a research institution – in size, in capacity for interdisciplinary collaboration, and in its continuing efforts to integrate undergraduates into the process of discovery. The task of the university’s new vice president for research, Karl V. Steiner, will be to continue and intensify that growth.
Steiner was hired to take the reins from Geoffrey Summers, a professor of physics at UMBC, who has retired after serving as vice president since 2008. Summers was also the founding dean of UMBC’s College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences in 2005.
In his previous position as senior associate provost for research development at the University of Delaware, Steiner fostered notable interdisciplinary collaborations among engineers, life scientists, social scientists, health scientists and other researchers. He was a professor in the electrical and computer engineering department and the biomedical engineering program, and served in a variety of other positions, including founding associate director of the Delaware Biotechnology Institute, executive director of the Center for Composite Materials, founding executive director of the Fraunhofer Research Center – Delaware, and president and founder of Lightweight Solutions, Inc.
Steiner received his Engineering Diploma in electrical engineering from the University of Applied Sciences in Braunschweig Wolfenbüttel, Germany, in 1983; his master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Delaware in 1989; and his Doktor Ingenieur in mechanical engineering from the Institute for Composite Materials (IVW) at the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany, in 1995. He is a co-holder of two patents, and has authored over 80 publications in prominent science, technology and engineering journals.
– Richard Byrne ’86
For the fourth year running, The Chronicle of Higher Education has named UMBC one of the best colleges in the nation for which to work. It was also the second year in a row that UMBC made the Chronicle’s “Honor Roll” for ranking highly across all categories in which faculty and staff across the country were asked to rate their workplaces.
The Chronicle results are based on responses from nearly 45,000 people at 300 institutions nationwide. UMBC received high ratings in seven categories, including collaborative governance, teaching environment and diversity.
But how do UMBC faculty and staff view UMBC in their own words? A recent survey conducted to prepare for the creation of the university’s new strategic plan (Our UMBC: A Strategic Plan for Advancing Excellence)is one place to look.
The survey of faculty, staff and students was conducted earlier this year as part of a year-long preparation to commence work on the new plan. A word cloud derived from responses of faculty and staff was presented at the university’s annual retreat in August (in the shape of a retriever, of course), revealing that among the words that came up most often were “engaged,” “diverse,” “collaborative,” “innovative,” “supportive,” “inclusive,” community” and “entrepreneurial.”
UMBC Provost Philip Rous also formally unveiled the strategic planning process at this year’s university retreat. The creation of the plan will unfold over the next two years and its implementation will coincide with UMBC’s 50th anniversary in 2016. You can find out more about Our UMBC: A Strategic Plan for Advancing Excellence by visiting www.umbc.edu/planning.
– Richard Byrne ’86
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Brian Souders ’09, Ph.D., language, literacy and culture, has directed UMBC’s Study Abroad program since 2000. His own travels and study have taken him to (among many locations) Finland and Russia, but Souders spent a week this past spring in one of the most secretive and closed-off nations in the world: North Korea.
Officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (or DPRK), North Korea hosts only a few thousand tourists annually – and only a fraction of that number are Americans.
A week spent in North Korea in March is not a spring break trip to Cancún by any stretch of the imagination. Most group tours do not start with a two-hour orientation that involves each individual signing a statement that they are not a journalist trying to sneak into the country. Nor do most group tours elsewhere in the world have a long list of rules and regulations – no photographs of soldiers, scenes of poverty, strategic buildings or anything that could remotely be construed as a military target or a source of embarrassment to the North Korean government.
In exchange for our agreement to these conditions? We were to be accompanied at all times by guides from the North Korean state travel agency. No long strolls on your own across Kim Il Sung Square in the capital city of Pyongyang. In fact, there was no time scheduled for any individual activity. Our assigned guides could get into serious trouble were we to wander off.
The best way to describe the week I spent in North Korea is “time travel.” A journey back to my very first visit to the then-Soviet Union in 1982. At the time, I was a high school exchange student spending my junior year in Finland – and our program included a weekend trip to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).
As was the case in Leningrad in the latter days of the Cold War, Pyongyang is devoid of any commercial advertising. The city is full of propaganda in support of the Korean Workers’ Party (North Korea’s Communist Party) and the Korean People’s Army. The same lantern-jawed proletarians depicted in Soviet propaganda posters also appeared in Pyongyang with Asian – instead of European – features.
Even more ubiquitous were images of the three men who have ruled North Korea since its founding in 1948: the Great Leader and Eternal President, Kim Il Sung (1948-1994); his son, the Dear Leader Kim Jong Il (1994-2012); and his grandson, current leader, Kim Jong Un.
In the 1980s, the cult of personality among Soviet leaders had largely vanished, with only founder Vladimir Lenin’s portrait still widely displayed. The cult of the Kim family, however, is inescapable – disseminated via posters and portraits in libraries, schools, public squares, and in every single car of the Pyongyang metro.
Our itinerary for the week also included visits to Mansu Hill (where statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il tower over the square) and Kumsusan Palace of the Sun (where both men are buried). We also paid a five-hour visit to the International Friendship Exhibition Hall, a museum with an endless maze of corridors connecting rooms filled with the more than 90,000 gifts given to the Great Leader and the Dear Leader by a long list of dead dictators – including the late presidents of Iraq, Libya, Romania, the Soviet Union.
“If you were to spend one minute looking at each gift in this museum to the Eternal President and his son, the Dear Leader,” our guide told us as the tour commenced, “you could spend a year here.”
We exchanged silent glances of panic.
In March, the Korean Peninsula is swept by chilly winds from Siberia. But the contrast between South and North Korea in March is revealing.
When I visited South Korea in March 2012 to run the Seoul Marathon, I regularly had to open the windows in my overheated hotel room. But I rarely did so in North Korea – where hot water was sporadic, electricity intermittent (even in the capital) and indoor heating was not universal.
As our group headed into the Light Industry section of the Museum of the Three Revolutions during our trip, I had a bad feeling.
“Bundle up,” I told one of my fellow travelers. “We’re going inside.” We could see our own breath as we wandered from exhibition to exhibition.
I did catch a few memorable and unscripted glimpses of the country seen through the windows of our comfortable tour bus. The public face of Pyongyang glistened in comparison with empty, pothole-filled highways that wound past high-rise apartment rows marked by extreme poverty.
And I saw life beyond the city, too – glimpses of a stunning countryside where peasant farmers hacked through the snow-covered fields, following ox-powered plows in the bitter cold as they prepared for spring planting.
But was I able to experience the “real” North Korea? Our group never entered a regular shop or interacted with anyone other than roller-blading children at Kim Il Sung Stadium. We never touched (or even saw) North Korean currency.
The answer, sadly, is no.
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