4 ms·

I can't tell the difference, honestly.

by ori_b 11y ago

Retra 11y ago
So there's this phenomenon that I see on occasion that I call "Invented problems" where somebody invents some concept like a 'soul' just so they can sell you their authority in saving it. I'm not trying to belittle anyone for being a kerning snob, since I know there's a good amount of pleasure and life to be had in concerning yourself with a narrow passion, but I can't shake the feeling that people who care about kerning more than the point of simply knowing that it exists and is called that as a matter of trivia haven't been sold an invented problem. And also that the efforts they put into it are so myopic that it risks tone-deafness. For example, I keep hearing that monospaced fonts are 'bad' because "m's are crunched together, but i's have all this room..." Ok... That adds character to your words. The sequence "iiii" is loose and free, and the sequence "mmmm" is busy and monolithic. Why is that a problem? It 'hurts readability' somehow? That's like saying that personality hurts relationships because you can't just put everyone in the same group. The words 'phenomenon' and 'somebody' feel different from 'soul' and 'authority' because they have different shapes, and that might be a very good thing. Anyway, my point is this: whenever I read about somebody putting significant effort into something like kerning, I'm left feeling like they don't even know if they are making a huge mistake and 'fixing' something that was already optimal, and in fact, could be optimal without anyone giving a single real thought on the kerning. All this effort is being spent on something that isn't actually making the world better in any relevant way.
- sjwright 11y ago
  Kerning isn't an invented problem like saving your soul. Kerning exists whether you believe in it or not. It's a core aspect of all typography, almost as much as the letter shapes themselves. The real problem is that like many disciplines that tightly intertwine design and engineering aspects, the right answers aren't quite as precise or objective as you might hope.
  - Retra 11y ago
    Kerning isn't the invented problem. The importance of marginal gains by adjusting kerning in logo design is. Imagine if I wrote an article where I was claiming that the blue component of the logo color should be 3% lighter. Maybe it's a real improvement. My concern is that the color of the logo on that scale is such a small part of what makes it a good design or not, that my reflex of analyzing it in that way is counter-productive to being a good designer. I'm not saying color is unimportant. I'm saying the focus might be too narrow to be used to do design.
- dogecoinbase 11y ago
  This post is beautiful -- it perfectly describes itself.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- dasil003 11y ago
  Design absolutely makes the world better in a relevant way, your day to day existence would be dramatically more painful if everyone throughout history thought the way you do. The fact that you do not care to understand it does not make it less relevant or beneficial to you. You are like the anarchist complaining about the utter uselessness of government all the while driving on public roads and drinking public water. When you have the urge to go on a rant like this you would do well to stop and ask yourself, "is there something here I just don't understand yet?" and save yourself some embarassment.
  - Retra 11y ago
    I'm not embarrassed about what I said. Maybe you think I should be, and I put extra effort into saying it because I knew it would be a controversial issue. But I wasn't talking about design in general, I was talking only about kerning. I simply can't imagine that the kerning of text that I read has made my life less painful in any way, except in the situation where we've avoided clearly unreadable, awful kerning. Now tell me how the Google logo is that kind of situation, and maybe I'd understand your point. Also, I do care to understand this subject. I just also care to understand more than just that. We can talk all day about kerning, but you don't do good design by talking all day about kerning, you do it by talking about human experiences. And as a human experience, kerning isn't really on most people's radar.
    - dasil003 11y ago
      You put effort into saying that? Because it read like an undifferentiated rant against all typography. If it was only about kerning, why did you set up a huge strawman about monospaced fonts implying that you would by fine in a world with only monospaced fonts, and that readability is not really a thing, and then going on to set up some analogy about relationships that is utterly unfathomable in its irrelevance. If it's just about kerning then I suppose you didn't intend any of this, but that's definitely how it comes off.
      - Retra 11y ago
        When I was talking about monospaced fonts I was doing so only to point out that people tend to talk about abolishing them like it's all upside. My point is to suggest that one take a broader view of the subject before advocating a design position, and focusing on the kerning of the Google logo is an example of failing to do that. If I had written more, it would probably look more like a rant, and if I'd written less, it would've been bull-in-china-shop writing. Writing subtle criticism on the internet is walking a fine line.

I can't tell the difference, honestly.

by ori_b 11y ago

I can't tell the difference, honestly.

Retra 11y ago

So there's this phenomenon that I see on occasion that I call "Invented problems" where somebody invents some concept like a 'soul' just so they can sell you their authority in saving it. I'm not trying to belittle anyone for being a kerning snob, since I know there's a good amount of pleasure and life to be had in concerning yourself with a narrow passion, but I can't shake the feeling that people who care about kerning more than the point of simply knowing that it exists and is called that as a matter of trivia haven't been sold an invented problem. And also that the efforts they put into it are so myopic that it risks tone-deafness. For example, I keep hearing that monospaced fonts are 'bad' because "m's are crunched together, but i's have all this room..." Ok... That adds character to your words. The sequence "iiii" is loose and free, and the sequence "mmmm" is busy and monolithic. Why is that a problem? It 'hurts readability' somehow? That's like saying that personality hurts relationships because you can't just put everyone in the same group. The words 'phenomenon' and 'somebody' feel different from 'soul' and 'authority' because they have different shapes, and that might be a very good thing. Anyway, my point is this: whenever I read about somebody putting significant effort into something like kerning, I'm left feeling like they don't even know if they are making a huge mistake and 'fixing' something that was already optimal, and in fact, could be optimal without anyone giving a single real thought on the kerning. All this effort is being spent on something that isn't actually making the world better in any relevant way.

sjwright 11y ago
Kerning isn't an invented problem like saving your soul. Kerning exists whether you believe in it or not. It's a core aspect of all typography, almost as much as the letter shapes themselves. The real problem is that like many disciplines that tightly intertwine design and engineering aspects, the right answers aren't quite as precise or objective as you might hope.
- Retra 11y ago
  Kerning isn't the invented problem. The importance of marginal gains by adjusting kerning in logo design is. Imagine if I wrote an article where I was claiming that the blue component of the logo color should be 3% lighter. Maybe it's a real improvement. My concern is that the color of the logo on that scale is such a small part of what makes it a good design or not, that my reflex of analyzing it in that way is counter-productive to being a good designer. I'm not saying color is unimportant. I'm saying the focus might be too narrow to be used to do design.
dogecoinbase 11y ago
This post is beautiful -- it perfectly describes itself.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
dasil003 11y ago
Design absolutely makes the world better in a relevant way, your day to day existence would be dramatically more painful if everyone throughout history thought the way you do. The fact that you do not care to understand it does not make it less relevant or beneficial to you. You are like the anarchist complaining about the utter uselessness of government all the while driving on public roads and drinking public water. When you have the urge to go on a rant like this you would do well to stop and ask yourself, "is there something here I just don't understand yet?" and save yourself some embarassment.
- Retra 11y ago
  I'm not embarrassed about what I said. Maybe you think I should be, and I put extra effort into saying it because I knew it would be a controversial issue. But I wasn't talking about design in general, I was talking only about kerning. I simply can't imagine that the kerning of text that I read has made my life less painful in any way, except in the situation where we've avoided clearly unreadable, awful kerning. Now tell me how the Google logo is that kind of situation, and maybe I'd understand your point. Also, I do care to understand this subject. I just also care to understand more than just that. We can talk all day about kerning, but you don't do good design by talking all day about kerning, you do it by talking about human experiences. And as a human experience, kerning isn't really on most people's radar.
  - dasil003 11y ago
    You put effort into saying that? Because it read like an undifferentiated rant against all typography. If it was only about kerning, why did you set up a huge strawman about monospaced fonts implying that you would by fine in a world with only monospaced fonts, and that readability is not really a thing, and then going on to set up some analogy about relationships that is utterly unfathomable in its irrelevance. If it's just about kerning then I suppose you didn't intend any of this, but that's definitely how it comes off.
    - Retra 11y ago
      When I was talking about monospaced fonts I was doing so only to point out that people tend to talk about abolishing them like it's all upside. My point is to suggest that one take a broader view of the subject before advocating a design position, and focusing on the kerning of the Google logo is an example of failing to do that. If I had written more, it would probably look more like a rant, and if I'd written less, it would've been bull-in-china-shop writing. Writing subtle criticism on the internet is walking a fine line.