4 ms·

I had this conversation at work last week. Google makes trivial data trivial to find, and yet mildly less trivial questions like "what is a good introductory te

by ynniv 16y ago

I had this conversation at work last week. Google makes trivial data trivial to find, and yet mildly less trivial questions like "what is a good introductory textbook on typography" result in pages chock full of useless link spam. You struggle to find mention of anything predating 1998, before which a few useful things happened... even by Hal Varian standards.

dougws 16y ago
What does "you struggle to find mention of anything before 1998" mean? Google an event which occurred before 1998 and you'll find plenty of information and analysis, much of which I wouldn't call trivial.
- natrius 16y ago
  Primary sources for pre-internet events are much harder to find than they are for internet era events. You will find information and analysis about the fall of the Berlin wall, but you won't find the kind of immediate responses that you would for 9/11. This is a solved problem, but it has been solved by companies that charge for their services.
  - CrazedGeek 16y ago
    Ugh, didn't mean to downvote, sorry.
exit 16y ago
i'm drawing a blank on how to find introductory textbook recommendations faster than google. i just googled "typography introductory textbook" and found at list one list of 15. of those the earliest publishing date was 1999, but if something worthwhile happened in the field of typography before then i suspect it will be reposted in newer books. plus reference to any recent issues in typography.
- ynniv 16y ago
  i just googled "typography introductory textbook" and found at list one list of 15. Are any of those good? Which of them is best? And most interestingly, what list are you looking at, as my Google results are a decent looking Amazon link, an empty Amazon link, a "Personality Quiz", a blog post with a few books, this comment on Hacker News, something on economics, something on typography on the web, et cetera. Given the results, you could guess that the first link on Amazon might be okay, but this is garbage compared to actual research. At least the random blog post mentions a couple of options, but who is this person, and why is there only one such blog post? This is a really old subject, with lots of material - hiding somewhere. More importantly, with Google we play keyword bingo. Your search of "typography introductory textbook" returns more authentic results than "typography textbook", which returns publisher links and promotional pages almost exclusively.

by ynniv 16y ago

dougws 16y ago

What does "you struggle to find mention of anything before 1998" mean? Google an event which occurred before 1998 and you'll find plenty of information and analysis, much of which I wouldn't call trivial.

natrius 16y ago
Primary sources for pre-internet events are much harder to find than they are for internet era events. You will find information and analysis about the fall of the Berlin wall, but you won't find the kind of immediate responses that you would for 9/11. This is a solved problem, but it has been solved by companies that charge for their services.
- CrazedGeek 16y ago
  Ugh, didn't mean to downvote, sorry.

exit 16y ago

i'm drawing a blank on how to find introductory textbook recommendations faster than google. i just googled "typography introductory textbook" and found at list one list of 15. of those the earliest publishing date was 1999, but if something worthwhile happened in the field of typography before then i suspect it will be reposted in newer books. plus reference to any recent issues in typography.

ynniv 16y ago
i just googled "typography introductory textbook" and found at list one list of 15. Are any of those good? Which of them is best? And most interestingly, what list are you looking at, as my Google results are a decent looking Amazon link, an empty Amazon link, a "Personality Quiz", a blog post with a few books, this comment on Hacker News, something on economics, something on typography on the web, et cetera. Given the results, you could guess that the first link on Amazon might be okay, but this is garbage compared to actual research. At least the random blog post mentions a couple of options, but who is this person, and why is there only one such blog post? This is a really old subject, with lots of material - hiding somewhere. More importantly, with Google we play keyword bingo. Your search of "typography introductory textbook" returns more authentic results than "typography textbook", which returns publisher links and promotional pages almost exclusively.