Jane Solomon

👋Hello. I’m a typeface designer now and this was my first project.

Miss you too!!!

Great article by @jasonli.bsky.social on digital typefaces made in Hong Kong. This includes Prison Gothic, a project based on road signs around the city made by incarcerated people in the 1970s to 1990s.

Happy birthday(?)!!!

this is actually very good merch

Absolutely. Logotypes/display fonts don’t need to prioritize legibility in the way body text does.

Geometric sans fonts like Helvetica are popular, but having letter terminations perfectly aligned can make a font more difficult to read.

For the last 1.5 years I've been working at @rileycran.bsky.social's typographical foundry Lettermatic. Here's a thread he wrote about legibility in type.

a woman in a plaid dress and beret is standing in front of a crowd of people applauding . Alt: Cher from Clueless curtsying

Thus concludes my neofuturist reading of Clueless.

It’s important to note that Cher’s extreme wealth is inextricable from her access to futuristic technology.

She grew up in a culture where the latest technology is a status symbol, and so it’s part of her identity to be immersed in the most expensive and innovative tech.

a close up of a man 's face in a car Alt: Paul Rudd smiling while driving in Clueless

And finally, Clueless accurately predicted what current-day Paul Rudd would look like (that man does not age).

How ‘As If!’ Became a Catchphrase Ben Zimmer talks to writer-director Amy Heckerling of the comedy classic “Clueless” about the source of the famous quote “as if!”

I won’t even go into the influence of the language of Clueless, because that’s been written about before in detail by @benzimmer.bsky.social and others. www.wsj.com/articles/how...

a woman is making a funny face and saying " oops my bad " Alt: Cher from Clueless is driving and saying "Oops, my bad!"

Projecting further out in the future, self-driving cars could eliminate the need to learn to drive entirely.

Cher’s devaluing of parking and driving as a skill is 25 years ahead of her time.

In 1995 parking (and driving) was an important skill for someone like Cher living in LA.

But today, many high-end cars can park themselves, and with ridesharing apps, learning to park or even drive has become less of a priority for many people in big cities than it was in 1995.

Moving on.

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Cher doesn’t understand the importance of learning to park a car. When asked by Josh if she wants to practice parking, she said “What’s the point? Everywhere you go has valet.”

Tech’s influence on fashion is right there in Clueless if you only look.

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The tiny backpacks can be seen as predictive when examined through a near-future lens. As technology gets smaller and smaller (somethingsomething Moore’s Law) our bags can shrink down along with it.

In preparation for this same date, Cher customizes the lighting in her home. This is a widespread technology today thanks to products like Philips Hue, but this was surprising to a 1995 audience.

Same with her remote-control fireplace, which read as a visual gag in 1995.

Dion Taking a photo of Cher trying on clothes in Clueless

Before Cher’s date with Christian, Dionne take photos of her outfits. Cher explains “I don’t rely on mirrors so I always take polaroids.”

When seen through a neofuturist lens, this line predicts the rise of selfies and the way the cameras in our phones have become our mirrors.

a computer screen shows a leopard print shirt and a leopard print skirt Alt: Cher's digital wardrobe from Clueless

Cher’s wardrobe touchscreen is a prototype for in-home touchscreen experiences today.

It also shows a vision for online shopping before online shopping was really a thing.

For context, Amazon and Ebay launched in 1994 and 1995 respectively. Clueless came out in 1995.

Another example: a phone rings at the dinner table and everyone checks their cells.

Even just the pure ubiquity of phones in Clueless did not reflect reality in 1995. But watching this movie today, the phone use almost doesn’t register as a joke.

How prescient!

Cher and Dion from the movie Clueless walking next to each other while talking on mobile phones to each other.

The use of phone technology in Clueless was a punchline in 1995, but today it reflects real-world use.

For example, two teens approach each other in a hallway while having a phone conversation with each other. An absurd image in 1995. I remember laughing in the theater.

When people think of Clueless from a critical lens, it’s often in terms of its roots in the past. It is, after all, a modern-day adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma.

However, recently I’ve been thinking of the vision of technology presented in Clueless.

a woman is applying makeup in a classroom while a man is smoking a cigarette in the background . Alt: Cher from the movie Clueless looks off into the middle distance.

Here’s my ✨neofuturist✨ reading of Clueless that absolutely no one asked for.

a giant cow making friends with smaller cows

Cow do you do, fellow kids?