5 ms·
Learning a Manifold of Fonts (2014)
- Stratoscope 10y agoYou would think that a web page about fonts would at least make a halfhearted attempt to use fonts that are somewhat readable. I know we're not supposed to nitpick about formatting details and instead comment on the message itself. But when a page is about fonts, I think its choice of fonts is fair game. :-) I tried to read the page in Chrome and Firefox on my Galaxy Note 4, and on desktop Chrome and Edge. It's barely readable in any of them. Combine the spindly thin body font with the layout that doesn't reflow on mobile when you try to zoom in - what a mess. The article would be so much more readable if it just didn't use a custom font at all and simply let the browser use its default font.
- jordanwallwork 10y agoI was coming here to say this! It makes my eyes feel weird, it's dreadful
- hackits 10y agoI concur.
- rawTruthHurts 10y agoIt's not an article about fonts. It's an interactive experiment on typography.
- JoBrad 10y agoI'm not sure that changes his argument much.
- Stratoscope 10y agoHopefully I can be forgiven for thinking the article had something to do with fonts, considering that the word appears in the title as well as 22 times in the body. :-)
- rawTruthHurts 10y agoAnd I hope to be forgiven too for my poor wording, since I meant font readability :/
- elcapitan 10y agoNot sure why that is the case, the font is a professional font by Adobe (also here https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Source+Sans+Pro https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Source+Sans+Pro). Maybe they are using a desktop font (without screen optimization) instead of an actual web font. You can see on the google fonts page that the font performs fine.
- elcapitan 10y agoHaving said that, their example for generated fonts are kind of painful to look at.
- awesomerobot 10y agoThey use the 'lighter' value for font weight in the CSS, which is just absurd for body text.
- Etheryte 10y agoThis is the only thing I noticed before quickly closing the page. Completely unreadable.
- leviathan 10y agoHeads up for anyone on limited bandwidth: The page loads over 25Mb of javascript in order to display anything.
- pieterp 10y agoThe jargon in the type world is a tad different from what's being used here, it bothers me immensely. E.g. a font (file, lead type, etc.) and a typeface (design) are two different things. Type design and typography aren't synonymous either. I know it's an experiment but I doubt it's likely that the EULA states that the fonts can be manipulated, e.g. you need written consent of Grilli Type if you wish to do this. I'm unaware of the policy in other foundries. Neat experiment but I don't really see a use for this.
- grif-fin 10y agoThis is good job. Having the ability to customize a font under the control of keeping it in the valid readable manifold. Has Adobe discovered this? I be happy having this feature in Photoshop.