11 ms·

Typography on the iPad

116 points by nkm 16y ago

nkm 16y ago
An interesting read, imo. Via MacStories http://www.macstories.net/ipad/the-ipad-from-a-typographer-point-of-view/ http://www.macstories.net/ipad/the-ipad-from-a-typographer-p...
- Silhouette 16y ago
  Just to avoid giving the link-spammer any more free visitors, I confirm that the link in the parent comment is nothing but a ripped excerpt from the original with no extra content.
  - nkm 16y ago
    My apologies. Just wanted to give credit to site where I found the article (which I have nothing to do with, by the way).
    - Silhouette 16y ago
      Sorry, I didn't notice that you were also the original poster, and mistook your comment for link-spam (as, presumably, did the other down-voters).
      - nkm 16y ago
        No problem :), the comment makes it look like spam, actually.
acg 16y ago
Although it's probably not the author's fault the typesetting of the article is dreadful too. Because of this the article seems less authoritative.
- asolove 16y ago
  How so?
  - acg 16y ago
    Reading the text is made difficult by the spacing used. The paragraph headings for instance just look like bold text and could be spaced better to allow them to be found in the page. The ragged right edge is too ragged and makes the text difficult to read.
    - thingie 16y ago
      If it wasn't ragged, it would most likely look even worse than that Pooh example in the article. It depends on the size of font, which you can't (on the web) control. And he is right, justified paragraphs without hyphenation are ugly, unless you have a lot of characters on a line. Which he has not (around the images especially), and the example is even worse. I wouldn't even think of displaying justified paragraphs for lines shorter than, say… 80 characters or with hyphenations [1]. But even printed newspapers give up justification in narrow columns and has ragged right. [1] I think that you could make it in javascript. With too few characters on a line, display paragraphs ragged, with more, justified. Maybe someone already did it.
      - acg 16y ago
        Too ragged was the criticism, which is different from not ragged. There is enough control in CSS to make it look better, and many people do.
        asolove 16y ago
        Really? I am not aware of a way to do this (other than just making the line longer relative to the font size, which statistically makes the breaks more even)
    - scott_s 16y ago
      Web browsers do text justification horribly. Beyond not hyphenating words, they also don't change the spacing inside the word. (I want to say this is kerning, but I can't determine if that applies to adjustable space, or only to the static space.) Until web browser can handle that, there's no reason to justify text on a webpage.
acg 16y ago
Reminds me of the Stanford address where Jobs claims that computers may not have had typography if he'd not done a calligraphy course. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc I'm sure the Parc guys that founded Adobe would beg to differ.
- rimantas 16y ago
  I'm sure the Parc guys that founded Adobe would beg to differ. Maybe, but I am not sure how much. I'd say Apple played a major role in Adobe becoming Adobe. It was Jobs who persuaded them to change initial plan to build the whole package: computer + printer, and focus on software which Apple needed for LaserWriter. "Steve did a prepayment on royalties to make sure we had the resources to stay in business, and Apple also bought a little less than 20 percent of the company, which quintupled the value of the original investors' money. Steve wanted to make sure that we finish this product, because it was critical for him to have the LaserWriter" "Fortunately, there was a young marketing guy at Apple named John Scull, who aware of what was going on (as were we) at Aldus up in Seattle, because PageMaker come out at the same time as the LaserWriter did. He came up with the idea of getting the three companies—Apple, Aldus and Adobe—together to put together a marketing campaign called "desktop publishing". Source: Interview with Charles Geschke, cofounder of Adobe Systems in "Founders at work".
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- shalmanese 16y ago
  Wow, imagine if Jobs had taken a microbiology course. Apple computers would be able to cure cancer by now.
- papersmith 16y ago
  [TeX](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX) was released in 1978, though I'm not sure as to the time line of the other developments.
kanwisher 16y ago
Typographers are an interesting breed, I would have never noticed any of these details. But they make a big difference rather surprised apple isn't interested in this area anymore
moe 16y ago
It still baffles me that people want to read books on the iPad in first place. Reading on a backlit screen is well known to tire your eyes very quickly, due to the low resolution and (afaik) because the eyes' Rhodopsin depletes faster while staring into a light source. I have heard people arguing that we spend half our days in front of a computer-screen anyways, but that is a different kind of usage. During computer use the eye is mostly scanning and rarely reading chunks of text longer than a page at once. Book reading is a different story, as anyone who has tried to do that on a backlit screen can confirm. Consequently this argument about (Book-)typography misses the point for me. If you want a good reading experience then get an e-ink device or stick with paper. Even the best font can only marginally reduce the inherent problems with staring a backlit screen for extended periods of time...
- KirinDave 16y ago
  Sir, I heartily recommend that you avoid making biological claims that you clearly understand only dimly. In any event, I have read numerous books and publications on my led backlit monitor for my laptop and not experienced significant eyestrain. The amount of eyestrain I feel is roughly analogous to reading in similar environments. Modern display technology has come a long way from the days of CRTs. I think this complaint is weak at best and unfounded at worst.
  - mdolon 16y ago
    Relevant: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303338304575155891445033542.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230333830457515...
  - glymor 16y ago
    The question is how big a hit on reading speed. It's possible to read on anything so that's not a useful criterion. Personally e-ink is only a small difference off paperback and faster than a hard back. My last LCD was about an hour longer for a book but it had a smaller screen (and the big problem wrt the LCD was a backlight turning off). Realistically it's things like: how do you turn a page; can you do it with either hand; is it easy to hold. That make more difference.
tesseract 16y ago
Idea: I should write a Knuth-Plass patch for WebKit! takes a gander at RenderBlockLineLayout.cpp Never mind then. The number of special cases in there is frightening.
mkinsella 16y ago
Typography has always been a bit of a black art for me. In the end, I usually just settle on something that (I think) doesn't look terrible. Anyone have some basic and intermediate tutorials/guides, sites, and book recommendations?
- oneplusone 16y ago
  The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst is an amazing book. It is a very easy read and very educational. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Style http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Sty...
  - eswat 16y ago
    Yeah, it’s a great read and reference afterwards. Here’s a companion site for applying the book to the web: http://webtypography.net/toc/ http://webtypography.net/toc/
- ugh 16y ago
  (By the way, “black art” is a old fashioned term for typesetting. Good choice of words there!)
- eagleal 16y ago
  typographica.org has type classifications (plus reviews). It's a good resource if you need to use a typeface somewhere (apps, pubblicatios). But I have to note that it's mainly used by designers for "inspirational purposes".
- mahipal 16y ago
  This is my go-to reference for web typography. It's simple enough that I can re-read the whole thing whenever I need to make things that aren't completely hideous. http://www.slideshare.net/jeff_croft/elegant-web-typography-presentation http://www.slideshare.net/jeff_croft/elegant-web-typography-...
- roel_v 16y ago
  Despite the name which makes it sound like it's only for lawyers, I learned a lot from this website: http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/ http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/ .
threwoff 16y ago
Chorded keyboards didn't work because they had keys. Smartphones didn't work because they had not enough board. So, if you come up with something that's larger than a smartphone and can run a chorded keyboard without keys, you use... ...yes, you use qwerty. It's not just the typography. Typing in iPad is stupid, too.
- eru 16y ago
  Why would I want to use qwerty?
jff 16y ago
I don't know about the rest of you, but attempting to open this in Chrome on Linux totally toasts my browser, i.e. nothing will load any more.
joubert 16y ago
Any one interested in typography, a good documentary to watch is Helvetica.

116 points by nkm 16y ago

nkm 16y ago

An interesting read, imo. Via MacStories http://www.macstories.net/ipad/the-ipad-from-a-typographer-point-of-view/ http://www.macstories.net/ipad/the-ipad-from-a-typographer-p...

Silhouette 16y ago
Just to avoid giving the link-spammer any more free visitors, I confirm that the link in the parent comment is nothing but a ripped excerpt from the original with no extra content.
- nkm 16y ago
  My apologies. Just wanted to give credit to site where I found the article (which I have nothing to do with, by the way).
  - Silhouette 16y ago
    Sorry, I didn't notice that you were also the original poster, and mistook your comment for link-spam (as, presumably, did the other down-voters).
    - nkm 16y ago
      No problem :), the comment makes it look like spam, actually.

acg 16y ago

Although it's probably not the author's fault the typesetting of the article is dreadful too. Because of this the article seems less authoritative.

asolove 16y ago
How so?
- acg 16y ago
  Reading the text is made difficult by the spacing used. The paragraph headings for instance just look like bold text and could be spaced better to allow them to be found in the page. The ragged right edge is too ragged and makes the text difficult to read.
  - thingie 16y ago
    If it wasn't ragged, it would most likely look even worse than that Pooh example in the article. It depends on the size of font, which you can't (on the web) control. And he is right, justified paragraphs without hyphenation are ugly, unless you have a lot of characters on a line. Which he has not (around the images especially), and the example is even worse. I wouldn't even think of displaying justified paragraphs for lines shorter than, say… 80 characters or with hyphenations [1]. But even printed newspapers give up justification in narrow columns and has ragged right. [1] I think that you could make it in javascript. With too few characters on a line, display paragraphs ragged, with more, justified. Maybe someone already did it.
    - acg 16y ago
      Too ragged was the criticism, which is different from not ragged. There is enough control in CSS to make it look better, and many people do.
      - asolove 16y ago
        Really? I am not aware of a way to do this (other than just making the line longer relative to the font size, which statistically makes the breaks more even)
  - scott_s 16y ago
    Web browsers do text justification horribly. Beyond not hyphenating words, they also don't change the spacing inside the word. (I want to say this is kerning, but I can't determine if that applies to adjustable space, or only to the static space.) Until web browser can handle that, there's no reason to justify text on a webpage.

acg 16y ago

Reminds me of the Stanford address where Jobs claims that computers may not have had typography if he'd not done a calligraphy course. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc I'm sure the Parc guys that founded Adobe would beg to differ.

rimantas 16y ago
I'm sure the Parc guys that founded Adobe would beg to differ. Maybe, but I am not sure how much. I'd say Apple played a major role in Adobe becoming Adobe. It was Jobs who persuaded them to change initial plan to build the whole package: computer + printer, and focus on software which Apple needed for LaserWriter. "Steve did a prepayment on royalties to make sure we had the resources to stay in business, and Apple also bought a little less than 20 percent of the company, which quintupled the value of the original investors' money. Steve wanted to make sure that we finish this product, because it was critical for him to have the LaserWriter" "Fortunately, there was a young marketing guy at Apple named John Scull, who aware of what was going on (as were we) at Aldus up in Seattle, because PageMaker come out at the same time as the LaserWriter did. He came up with the idea of getting the three companies—Apple, Aldus and Adobe—together to put together a marketing campaign called "desktop publishing". Source: Interview with Charles Geschke, cofounder of Adobe Systems in "Founders at work".
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
shalmanese 16y ago
Wow, imagine if Jobs had taken a microbiology course. Apple computers would be able to cure cancer by now.
papersmith 16y ago
[TeX](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX) was released in 1978, though I'm not sure as to the time line of the other developments.

kanwisher 16y ago

Typographers are an interesting breed, I would have never noticed any of these details. But they make a big difference rather surprised apple isn't interested in this area anymore

moe 16y ago

It still baffles me that people want to read books on the iPad in first place. Reading on a backlit screen is well known to tire your eyes very quickly, due to the low resolution and (afaik) because the eyes' Rhodopsin depletes faster while staring into a light source. I have heard people arguing that we spend half our days in front of a computer-screen anyways, but that is a different kind of usage. During computer use the eye is mostly scanning and rarely reading chunks of text longer than a page at once. Book reading is a different story, as anyone who has tried to do that on a backlit screen can confirm. Consequently this argument about (Book-)typography misses the point for me. If you want a good reading experience then get an e-ink device or stick with paper. Even the best font can only marginally reduce the inherent problems with staring a backlit screen for extended periods of time...

KirinDave 16y ago
Sir, I heartily recommend that you avoid making biological claims that you clearly understand only dimly. In any event, I have read numerous books and publications on my led backlit monitor for my laptop and not experienced significant eyestrain. The amount of eyestrain I feel is roughly analogous to reading in similar environments. Modern display technology has come a long way from the days of CRTs. I think this complaint is weak at best and unfounded at worst.
- mdolon 16y ago
  Relevant: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303338304575155891445033542.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230333830457515...
- glymor 16y ago
  The question is how big a hit on reading speed. It's possible to read on anything so that's not a useful criterion. Personally e-ink is only a small difference off paperback and faster than a hard back. My last LCD was about an hour longer for a book but it had a smaller screen (and the big problem wrt the LCD was a backlight turning off). Realistically it's things like: how do you turn a page; can you do it with either hand; is it easy to hold. That make more difference.

tesseract 16y ago

Idea: I should write a Knuth-Plass patch for WebKit! takes a gander at RenderBlockLineLayout.cpp Never mind then. The number of special cases in there is frightening.

mkinsella 16y ago

Typography has always been a bit of a black art for me. In the end, I usually just settle on something that (I think) doesn't look terrible. Anyone have some basic and intermediate tutorials/guides, sites, and book recommendations?

oneplusone 16y ago
The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst is an amazing book. It is a very easy read and very educational. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Style http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Sty...
- eswat 16y ago
  Yeah, it’s a great read and reference afterwards. Here’s a companion site for applying the book to the web: http://webtypography.net/toc/ http://webtypography.net/toc/
ugh 16y ago
(By the way, “black art” is a old fashioned term for typesetting. Good choice of words there!)
eagleal 16y ago
typographica.org has type classifications (plus reviews). It's a good resource if you need to use a typeface somewhere (apps, pubblicatios). But I have to note that it's mainly used by designers for "inspirational purposes".
mahipal 16y ago
This is my go-to reference for web typography. It's simple enough that I can re-read the whole thing whenever I need to make things that aren't completely hideous. http://www.slideshare.net/jeff_croft/elegant-web-typography-presentation http://www.slideshare.net/jeff_croft/elegant-web-typography-...
roel_v 16y ago
Despite the name which makes it sound like it's only for lawyers, I learned a lot from this website: http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/ http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/ .

threwoff 16y ago

Chorded keyboards didn't work because they had keys. Smartphones didn't work because they had not enough board. So, if you come up with something that's larger than a smartphone and can run a chorded keyboard without keys, you use... ...yes, you use qwerty. It's not just the typography. Typing in iPad is stupid, too.

eru 16y ago
Why would I want to use qwerty?

jff 16y ago

I don't know about the rest of you, but attempting to open this in Chrome on Linux totally toasts my browser, i.e. nothing will load any more.

joubert 16y ago

Any one interested in typography, a good documentary to watch is Helvetica.