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To be honest, this kind of solution throws the baby out with the bathwater. What this solution effectively proposes - is to change the way fonts are designed. F

To be honest, this kind of solution throws the baby out with the bathwater. What this solution effectively proposes - is to change the way fonts are designed. Font design is not just drawing letters, cap height to em size relationship is also an important decision. It doesn't have to 'align' with anything, space around letter is important. Again, there is a strange illustration in the "The Problem" section where lowercase 'm' from one font is compared to lowercase 'm' from another one. Yes, they have different x-height. Why is this a problem? The difference in cap height to em size ratio in different fonts is intentional, it is not random. In my like 15-year design career never ever I needed that fonts from different font faces would have the same cap height when the specified size is the same. Never ever I heard from my design colleagues that this is somehow bothering them. It is fine that different fonts have different "ink ratio", that's intended. And one particularly striking part - about the default line height. In fonts that are good at being used for large amount of text - you can typeset a book with it or use for body copy of a website or print magazine, the default line height is that particular height that makes it the most comfortable to read. And it's perfectly fine that it is different in different fonts - it has to be. It is not random - it is intentional. If there would be no specific default line height - then designers would have to tweak it each time for each font to make it readable or more realistically the quality of typography on Web and elsewhere will decrease because nobody would bother to do this properly. Sometimes you need sensible defaults, sometimes you need to respect the work of type designer. To discard hundreds of years of history and knowledge to satisfy marginal at best use cases feels barbaric to me, to be honest.

sfink 6y ago
Hm. As a user, when writing a document I put down the text first, using the default font and whatever font size feels comfortable for writing. Then in the polishing step, I try out different fonts. My standard routine is to switch font, notice that it's now way "smaller" or "denser" (or the reverse) than before and adjust font size until it's roughly back to where it was. Some font switches don't visibly change the feel of the size that much, but most do. I guess what I'm saying is that as a user, whatever property is tied to "font size" is not working for me. I don't know if caps height would work better for me than font size does, but it could hardly work worse and the examples in the article make me think it may be substantially better. And I would like that outcome! I would like to be try out several different fonts without needing to adjust everything for each one. I'm sure font designers had some specific purpose or set of purposes in mind for their fonts, but I'm using it for my purpose and in practice the sizing mechanism just isn't right for me. We can achieve the same end result either way. You have two non-orthogonal variables you can adjust to get whatever you want. This article is arguing that one of those variables is the wrong control knob, and I'm inclined to agree.
- artem247 6y ago
  I agree that technically you can have two non-orthogonal values and would actual satisfy some of the problems of users when switching fonts. Like a checkbox 'preserve x-height when changing fonts' would make those changes less drastic. Yet the article argues that font size is broken, my point is that author does not understands it's intended usage. Fonts are a very specific instrument with a long tradition of knowledge associated with it, yet there is context of a more 'consumer' setting, like using a code editor, here maybe there is a clash between professional usage (designers should be fine that different fonts have different size) and more of personal usage. Fonts were not meant for personal usage generally, and there is a certain learning curve on how to use them correctly, but there is no 'interface' currently for a general type of user who just want the text to look good.
ok-good 6y ago
I agree. The article is written from a programmer’s point of view and I understand that a programmer doesn’t want to deal with font characteristics or how something is perceived. The role of a designer ist to think about font sizes an line heights and designers have to understand how typography on the web works. Typography is not something which is based on numbers or technical rules. I think it’s good that the job of creating good ‘online stuff’ hasn’t merged into one person doing everything. It’s still too complex, because you can’t turn everything into numbers and rules.

sfink 6y ago

Hm. As a user, when writing a document I put down the text first, using the default font and whatever font size feels comfortable for writing. Then in the polishing step, I try out different fonts. My standard routine is to switch font, notice that it's now way "smaller" or "denser" (or the reverse) than before and adjust font size until it's roughly back to where it was. Some font switches don't visibly change the feel of the size that much, but most do. I guess what I'm saying is that as a user, whatever property is tied to "font size" is not working for me. I don't know if caps height would work better for me than font size does, but it could hardly work worse and the examples in the article make me think it may be substantially better. And I would like that outcome! I would like to be try out several different fonts without needing to adjust everything for each one. I'm sure font designers had some specific purpose or set of purposes in mind for their fonts, but I'm using it for my purpose and in practice the sizing mechanism just isn't right for me. We can achieve the same end result either way. You have two non-orthogonal variables you can adjust to get whatever you want. This article is arguing that one of those variables is the wrong control knob, and I'm inclined to agree.

artem247 6y ago
I agree that technically you can have two non-orthogonal values and would actual satisfy some of the problems of users when switching fonts. Like a checkbox 'preserve x-height when changing fonts' would make those changes less drastic. Yet the article argues that font size is broken, my point is that author does not understands it's intended usage. Fonts are a very specific instrument with a long tradition of knowledge associated with it, yet there is context of a more 'consumer' setting, like using a code editor, here maybe there is a clash between professional usage (designers should be fine that different fonts have different size) and more of personal usage. Fonts were not meant for personal usage generally, and there is a certain learning curve on how to use them correctly, but there is no 'interface' currently for a general type of user who just want the text to look good.

ok-good 6y ago

I agree. The article is written from a programmer’s point of view and I understand that a programmer doesn’t want to deal with font characteristics or how something is perceived. The role of a designer ist to think about font sizes an line heights and designers have to understand how typography on the web works. Typography is not something which is based on numbers or technical rules. I think it’s good that the job of creating good ‘online stuff’ hasn’t merged into one person doing everything. It’s still too complex, because you can’t turn everything into numbers and rules.