2 ms·

It's not aged paper, necessarily; look at any well-made book (excluding glossy picture books) and the paper will be stable and opaque but not bright.

• dredmorbius 10y ago
  I'm spending a lot of time going through Internet Archive books (the one indicated has relevance to the whole advertising-supported nature of the Internet as well, I submitted it as an HN article earlier today). So I'm somewhat attuned to the visual appearance. Different paper ages differently, and I believe that much of the highly-yellowed paper is high-pulp content, as opposed to archival-quality, acid-free rag. The degree of yellowing can vary, and in some cases it's rather more than I'd prefer for comfortable reading. In modest amounts, it's not bad though.
  • kps 10y ago
    Yes, my intent was to emphasize that lower-than-maximum contrast through paper (and not grey ink) is typical of most high-quality printing, to avoid giving the impression that it implies age, wear, or low quality (pulp/newsprint), which designers probably want to avoid. (There was an 18th-century fad for extremely high contrast, but fortunately it passed. And current printer/copy paper is excessively bright (often even using fluorescent brighteners), but no one considers photocopies to be the height of good taste.)