3 ms·

Can you give an example?

kingsley_20 16y ago
Serifs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serif#Origins_and_etymology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serif#Origins_and_etymology "The explanation proposed by Father Edward Catich in his 1968 book The Origin of the Serif is now broadly but not universally accepted: the Roman letter outlines were first painted onto stone, and the stone carvers followed the brush marks which flared at stroke ends and corners, creating serifs."
tptacek 16y ago
Take almost any established style of typeface. There's a reason it looks like that. Didot-style fonts are the result of innovation in composition and in equipment, which implies that more classical serif typeface forms (which obviously continue to be produced) are flourishes meant to evoke previously-functional aspects of the typeface. Compare Didot to Garamond. Same thing happens with Sans Serif fonts. You might argue that all sans-serif italics are just flourishes, since sans faces can be obliqued instead of designing cursive-style slanted type. Compare Gill Sans Italic to Akzidenz.
- swolchok 16y ago
  > Compare Didot to Garamond. What am I supposed to see? I'm afraid I'm having trouble seeing the conclusion you're getting at. From the samples on Wikipedia, the most apparent difference is that parts of the capital "A", like the feet and the left leg, are thinner and look more "deliberate". Other than that, the two fonts look very similar.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Pull up: * http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/didot/ http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/didot/ * http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/adobe/garamond/ http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/adobe/garamond/ Look at the dramatically contrasting weights between vertical and horizontal strokes in Didot. They bear deliberately little resemblance to how a human calligrapher would produce letters. Notice that the stroke axis in Garamond isn't 90 degrees; the "pen" that produced it isn't a a machine working an orthogonal path. There are far more calligraphic serifs than Garamond, you can see it. Look at the lowercase 'e'. Look at how Garamond's strokes flow into the serifs, and how abrupt Didot's are. Check out the lowercase 'p' on Didot. 90 degrees. Look at the terminals; Didot's are either sharp enough to cut glass, or mechanically precise teardrops. Again, Garamond strokes end the way a calligraphy stroke would.

Serifs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serif#Origins_and_etymology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serif#Origins_and_etymology "The explanation proposed by Father Edward Catich in his 1968 book The Origin of the Serif is now broadly but not universally accepted: the Roman letter outlines were first painted onto stone, and the stone carvers followed the brush marks which flared at stroke ends and corners, creating serifs."

tptacek 16y ago

Take almost any established style of typeface. There's a reason it looks like that. Didot-style fonts are the result of innovation in composition and in equipment, which implies that more classical serif typeface forms (which obviously continue to be produced) are flourishes meant to evoke previously-functional aspects of the typeface. Compare Didot to Garamond. Same thing happens with Sans Serif fonts. You might argue that all sans-serif italics are just flourishes, since sans faces can be obliqued instead of designing cursive-style slanted type. Compare Gill Sans Italic to Akzidenz.

swolchok 16y ago
> Compare Didot to Garamond. What am I supposed to see? I'm afraid I'm having trouble seeing the conclusion you're getting at. From the samples on Wikipedia, the most apparent difference is that parts of the capital "A", like the feet and the left leg, are thinner and look more "deliberate". Other than that, the two fonts look very similar.
- tptacek 16y ago
  Pull up: * http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/didot/ http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/didot/ * http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/adobe/garamond/ http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/adobe/garamond/ Look at the dramatically contrasting weights between vertical and horizontal strokes in Didot. They bear deliberately little resemblance to how a human calligrapher would produce letters. Notice that the stroke axis in Garamond isn't 90 degrees; the "pen" that produced it isn't a a machine working an orthogonal path. There are far more calligraphic serifs than Garamond, you can see it. Look at the lowercase 'e'. Look at how Garamond's strokes flow into the serifs, and how abrupt Didot's are. Check out the lowercase 'p' on Didot. 90 degrees. Look at the terminals; Didot's are either sharp enough to cut glass, or mechanically precise teardrops. Again, Garamond strokes end the way a calligraphy stroke would.