The Block M

I just realized another reason to why I like the University of Michigan's Block M: It's modern and old school at the same time.

First a pseudo tangent for example:
In cartography circles, sans serif fonts are often used to indicate man made features (like cities), while natural features (rivers for example) often have serif fonts.

Serifs are those extra bars and lines you see at the ends of letters such as on the capital letter "I". These

Serifs can be seen in Times New Roman or Palatino, and they often carry a traditional/historical/academic aesthetic feel to themselves.

A sans serif font like Arial or Impact is often interpreted aesthetically as modern. Can you imagine the font-logos of Star Trek or Star Wars with serifed feet on their fonts?! I challenge you to make an alternative logo that keeps serifs on it.

Back to the University of Michigan's block M:

It's got straight shot lines to make it aesthetically interpretable as a sans serif font, but keeps with tradition by retaining its "feet". Pretty hip huh?

Real tangent: I'm diving shallow into the world of typography, so I'm actually unfamiliar with font/typeface phylogeny. Even still, it's interesting to note that my favorite serif font is a member of the humanist font family while my favorite sans serif font Impact is a member of the realist font family. I wonder if there's an idealist font/typeface family out there...