Postmodern fonts

Found this today in a book my design prof wants me to read:

POSTMODERNIST (late 20th & early 21st century): frequent parody of Neoclassical, Romantic or Baroque form: rationalist or variable axis; sharply modelled serifs and terminals; moderate aperture.

Postmodern letterforms, like postmodern buildings, frequently recycle and revise Neoclassical, Romantic and other premodern forms. At their best, they do so with an engaging lightness of touch and a fine sense of humor. Postmodern art is for the most part highly self-conscious, but devoutly unserious. Postmodern designers -- who frequently are or have been Modernist designers as well -- have proven that it is possible to infuse Neoclassical and Romantic form, and the rationalist axis, with genuine calligraphic energy. (p. 15, 135 "The Elements of Typographic Style" by Robert Bringhurst)

These are the two examples they give in the book:

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/agfa/itc-esprit/
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/berthold/nofret-be/

Basically all the jargon up there has to do with the design of type faces. Basically they take bits and pieces from other, traditional fonts and stick them together to form Postmodern ones. Most of the snitching is done with serifs (the little feet thingies at the bottom and tops of letters) and they change how the font tilts on the page. If this isn't making sense, I can do a demo or something in class if people are really, REALLY interested. Just something small and kinda interesting to consider, especially given the amount of time we spend talking about language and how much it fails at being anything more than signifers. This is proven even more by the fact that type faces can be changed like this and give something a completely different feeling and message than just the words themselves. You can give a text an entirely look and it changes your intent and how the audience feels when reading it. Fonts can make you look pretentious, peaceful, studious and matter-of-fact, or like a dumbass making a parody of something serious. Generally the job of the designer or typographer is to pick a font and arrange the text that best portrays what said text is about. In this, typographers and designers author what the writer has already written.

Take the design of this blog, for instance. It's a set default layout which is used a bizillion other places, most of which are simple blogs about people's lives, but mostly their egos at work needing to express themselves. The fonts they use are legible, which is important, but also casual. You don't feel like you're reading a textbook or an official document by any stretch when you see this page. Certainly there are people out there who use blogs, similar layouts and fonts and, I'm sure, post amazingly thought-out things. Unfortunately, one must wade through lots of "i fUcKeD dis chic tday" or "OMG my 'rents SUCK", therefore a blog generally carries the stigma of informality and fluff.