8 ms·

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only programmer who doesn't have an interest in typography.

chrisseaton 10y ago
When I read articles about typography I feel like I'm reading pseudo science. They change something to do with kerning or whatever and then say it's better. Why is it better? It's not a falsifiable claim! When I write an article saying I'm doing something better in code I need to demonstrate it empirically. Maybe that's not a reasonable way to read a design article though.
- drittich 10y ago
  Just as with coding, there are both scientific and aesthetic aspects to it. Why choose?
- hasslein 10y ago
  Precisely where does this blog post make any claim about kerning? Or province any argument or statement towards which font in the movie is "better?"
  - chrisseaton 10y ago
    I didn't say anything about this article. Someone said they don't like reading about typography in general. I seconded and explained why.
- jfoutz 10y ago
  Off the top of my head, there are a couple of examples that might change your mind. Freeway road signs. They need to communicate what lane to be in to a broad range of drivers, in stressful situations, very quickly. You should never notice a good interchange sign. a quick glance is enough to know you need to be in the second or third lane. A bad sign leads to bad driving, or a missed exit, depending on the aggression of the driver. Airport signage is another pretty good example. I always look for the little man/woman symbols with an arrow pointing to the restrooms. I've missed signs that actually say "Restrooms ->" because there's so much visual clutter in airports. And i'm usually tired and a bit stressed out about making my connection. Perhaps it is pseudoscience. In this context, I'd be willing to agree it's all just learned conventions. I'd argue, studying those conventions, and exploiting them is more than nothing though. You should never remember a good sign. it's noticed, used and forgotten. You will always remember a bad sign.
  - jschwartzi 10y ago
    As an example of bad signage, the sign for the I405 north exit on I5 south in Washington always confuses me because the road curves across a hill, and at the distance where you should be changing lanes, the sign is aligned with the second lane from the left. It's not until you're passing under the sign that you can see the lane it's indicating, which is actually the far left lane.
- mietek 10y ago
  Typography is art, not science.
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    Isn't art science not explained yet ?
    - obj-g 10y ago
      No?
TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
Evidence suggests this is unlikely to be true. :)
cyberferret 10y ago
To be honest, when I started reading the article, I thought to myself "Great, another long winded dissertation on the shape of letters", but when I read further, the article goes into so many more aspects of the movie that I was completely enthralled. Discussion of the ship's scuttling procedure, and the odd 'destruction keyboard' layout in particular I found totally fascinating. I was actually quite surprised at the level of detail the set designers went to with this movie. If you are not a typography fan - do yourself a favour and push through the initial part of the article and wait for the bits where the author zooms in on particular screenshots to explore tiny details like the ship/company logo on cat dishes and beer cans etc.
- scott_s 10y ago
  Agreed. We call that "world building" now. Where an audience can look at seemingly incidental parts of a work, and infer things about the fictional world those parts come from, because the authors designed them to be from that world.
combatentropy 10y ago
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only programmer who has an interest in typography.
- twelvechairs 10y ago
  There was that great quote from Steve Jobs saying that the only reason modern computers had decent fonts is because he dropped in on a calligraphy class once and it stayed with him until they made the first Macs, which were then copied by Windows.
  - arcanus 10y ago
    Steve was a humble guy
  - kens 10y ago
    The Xerox Alto had multiple high-quality proportionally spaced fonts, along with the first WYSIWYG document editor (developed by Simonyi, who later wrote Word at Microsoft). This was two years before the Apple I, let alone the Mac. The credit for good fonts in computers should go to Xerox PARC, not a calligraphy class at Reed.
    - throwaway6436 10y ago
      The point is the class made him care about typography and he pushed so Apple computers would have good-looking text. As opposed to Windows, which did not at the time. He wasn't claiming he invented decent fonts on a computer.
      - kqr 10y ago
        > The point is the class made him care about typography and he pushed so Apple computers would have good-looking text. > As opposed to Windows, which did not at the time. And to a point, this is still true. It's surprisingly hard to get good text rendering in terminal emulators on Windows and Linux. I still have to settle for "good enough" rather than the "stellar" I can get on my OS X machine.

When I read articles about typography I feel like I'm reading pseudo science. They change something to do with kerning or whatever and then say it's better. Why is it better? It's not a falsifiable claim! When I write an article saying I'm doing something better in code I need to demonstrate it empirically. Maybe that's not a reasonable way to read a design article though.

drittich 10y ago
Just as with coding, there are both scientific and aesthetic aspects to it. Why choose?
hasslein 10y ago
Precisely where does this blog post make any claim about kerning? Or province any argument or statement towards which font in the movie is "better?"
- chrisseaton 10y ago
  I didn't say anything about this article. Someone said they don't like reading about typography in general. I seconded and explained why.
jfoutz 10y ago
Off the top of my head, there are a couple of examples that might change your mind. Freeway road signs. They need to communicate what lane to be in to a broad range of drivers, in stressful situations, very quickly. You should never notice a good interchange sign. a quick glance is enough to know you need to be in the second or third lane. A bad sign leads to bad driving, or a missed exit, depending on the aggression of the driver. Airport signage is another pretty good example. I always look for the little man/woman symbols with an arrow pointing to the restrooms. I've missed signs that actually say "Restrooms ->" because there's so much visual clutter in airports. And i'm usually tired and a bit stressed out about making my connection. Perhaps it is pseudoscience. In this context, I'd be willing to agree it's all just learned conventions. I'd argue, studying those conventions, and exploiting them is more than nothing though. You should never remember a good sign. it's noticed, used and forgotten. You will always remember a bad sign.
- jschwartzi 10y ago
  As an example of bad signage, the sign for the I405 north exit on I5 south in Washington always confuses me because the road curves across a hill, and at the distance where you should be changing lanes, the sign is aligned with the second lane from the left. It's not until you're passing under the sign that you can see the lane it's indicating, which is actually the far left lane.
mietek 10y ago
Typography is art, not science.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Isn't art science not explained yet ?
  - obj-g 10y ago
    No?

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago

Evidence suggests this is unlikely to be true. :)

cyberferret 10y ago

To be honest, when I started reading the article, I thought to myself "Great, another long winded dissertation on the shape of letters", but when I read further, the article goes into so many more aspects of the movie that I was completely enthralled. Discussion of the ship's scuttling procedure, and the odd 'destruction keyboard' layout in particular I found totally fascinating. I was actually quite surprised at the level of detail the set designers went to with this movie. If you are not a typography fan - do yourself a favour and push through the initial part of the article and wait for the bits where the author zooms in on particular screenshots to explore tiny details like the ship/company logo on cat dishes and beer cans etc.

scott_s 10y ago
Agreed. We call that "world building" now. Where an audience can look at seemingly incidental parts of a work, and infer things about the fictional world those parts come from, because the authors designed them to be from that world.

combatentropy 10y ago

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only programmer who has an interest in typography.

twelvechairs 10y ago
There was that great quote from Steve Jobs saying that the only reason modern computers had decent fonts is because he dropped in on a calligraphy class once and it stayed with him until they made the first Macs, which were then copied by Windows.
- arcanus 10y ago
  Steve was a humble guy
- kens 10y ago
  The Xerox Alto had multiple high-quality proportionally spaced fonts, along with the first WYSIWYG document editor (developed by Simonyi, who later wrote Word at Microsoft). This was two years before the Apple I, let alone the Mac. The credit for good fonts in computers should go to Xerox PARC, not a calligraphy class at Reed.
  - throwaway6436 10y ago
    The point is the class made him care about typography and he pushed so Apple computers would have good-looking text. As opposed to Windows, which did not at the time. He wasn't claiming he invented decent fonts on a computer.
    - kqr 10y ago
      > The point is the class made him care about typography and he pushed so Apple computers would have good-looking text. > As opposed to Windows, which did not at the time. And to a point, this is still true. It's surprisingly hard to get good text rendering in terminal emulators on Windows and Linux. I still have to settle for "good enough" rather than the "stellar" I can get on my OS X machine.