In “Classification and its Structures,” C. M. Sperberg-McQueen argues, “classification schemes are felt more useful if the classes are organized around properties relevant to the purpose of the classification.” This is true because any kind of organization system implies knowledge of the subject. Without this insight, the classification becomes arbitrary. For example, one might classify paintings by acidity for an analysis of Renaissance art & culture. What would be gained from this work? Acidity is irrelevant to the classification subject and project scope. Instead, scholars must first decide which information is relevant to the topic and then decide on a classification system that is relevant to the information. The implications of these decisions are numerous and important to the overall project.
One of the most interesting classification systems that I am familiar with is for typefaces. According to Ellen Lupton’s Thinking With Type, three main classes were introduced in the 19th century: humanist, transitional, and modern. These classes correspond roughly to the Renaissance, Baroque, and Enlightenment periods in art and literature. Although these letterforms may seem similar to the untrained eye, small changes in transitions, angles, and serifs represented huge shifts in print culture. In this case, the classification is useful because it serves both purposes outlined by M. Sperberg-McQueen: “by grouping together objects which share properties, it brings like objects together into a class… [and] by separating objects with unlike properties into separate classes, it distinguishes between things which are different in ways relevant to the purpose of the classification.” Historians and typography critics have since created more serif-based classifications (e.g. slab-serif, humanist sans-serif, and geometric sans-serif) and “proposed more finely grained schemes that attempt to better capture the diversity of letterforms” (Lupton).
Finally, classification also reminded me of another aspect of typography: hierarchy. Just as a classification system exposes similarities and differences between objects, “a typographic hierarchy expresses the organization of content, emphasizing some elements and subordinating others” (Lupton). Hierarchies help readers navigate through text similar to how classifications make data analysis and visualizations easier for scholars. Although there are infinitely many ways to accomplish either task, their implications are much the same. Sometimes one difference is emphasized at the expense of another or some information is omitted from the system because it does not easily fall in to any of the groups. This cannot be avoided; instead, designers and scholars must optimize their organization systems based on the scope, data, and end user’s needs.