4 ms·

And please avoid Time Roman. It might be suitable for newspapers, but it's legibility on screens is poor.

StevePerkins 5y ago
If that's true at all (this article itself is in a TNR variant), then it's only because Times has a small x-height, and it is smaller retaliative to other common screen fonts at the same point size. This is true for Garamond, too. And Baskerville, and virtually EVER classic serif font before Matthew Carter started designing for screens with Charter and Georgia. TNR is a fantastic font, it's just overused. That can actually be an advantage in many contexts, where you're not trying to be novel, and want your body text to project an orthodox and familiar feeling. I've seen great results with TNR on screens, with just a simple touch of CSS to make letters and line height larger, and the color to be a dark grey rather than pure black. Telling people to "please" boycott a font is more than a bit peremptory.
- Sunspark 5y ago
  An old font that is legible at small sizes is New Century Schoolbook (not the Microsoft MT version). I am talking for print and/or high-dpi phone screens. It has an old feel to it, but it really is quite surprisingly legible. For lo-dpi screens, Verdana all day every day. I override all the web fonts to Verdana (and the size too) so I can actually read stuff. I just can't take anymore these days whatever weirdly-hinted tiny font the designer wanted to use.
  - Tagbert 5y ago
    Both good font choices
devilbunny 5y ago
Without any attempt at being argumentative - because I am truly ignorant of the subject and freely admit so - is there any reasonably concise description of why serif typefaces are acceptable in print but verboten on screens? This has always seemed to me to be a sort of long-standing fashion thing amongst typographers, but as I know very little about the subject, I've never tried to argue it. I've never tried to measure my reading speed based on typeface, but it's never seemed that different. Am I wrong?
- Tagbert 5y ago
  A lot of it is due to the variable stroke width on most serif fonts. It leaves more room for problems with rasterizing the glyphs, particularly when the screen resolution is low. It has gotten better in recent years with more HiDPI screens but print still usually has better resolution.

If that's true at all (this article itself is in a TNR variant), then it's only because Times has a small x-height, and it is smaller retaliative to other common screen fonts at the same point size. This is true for Garamond, too. And Baskerville, and virtually EVER classic serif font before Matthew Carter started designing for screens with Charter and Georgia. TNR is a fantastic font, it's just overused. That can actually be an advantage in many contexts, where you're not trying to be novel, and want your body text to project an orthodox and familiar feeling. I've seen great results with TNR on screens, with just a simple touch of CSS to make letters and line height larger, and the color to be a dark grey rather than pure black. Telling people to "please" boycott a font is more than a bit peremptory.

Sunspark 5y ago
An old font that is legible at small sizes is New Century Schoolbook (not the Microsoft MT version). I am talking for print and/or high-dpi phone screens. It has an old feel to it, but it really is quite surprisingly legible. For lo-dpi screens, Verdana all day every day. I override all the web fonts to Verdana (and the size too) so I can actually read stuff. I just can't take anymore these days whatever weirdly-hinted tiny font the designer wanted to use.
- Tagbert 5y ago
  Both good font choices

devilbunny 5y ago

Without any attempt at being argumentative - because I am truly ignorant of the subject and freely admit so - is there any reasonably concise description of why serif typefaces are acceptable in print but verboten on screens? This has always seemed to me to be a sort of long-standing fashion thing amongst typographers, but as I know very little about the subject, I've never tried to argue it. I've never tried to measure my reading speed based on typeface, but it's never seemed that different. Am I wrong?

Tagbert 5y ago
A lot of it is due to the variable stroke width on most serif fonts. It leaves more room for problems with rasterizing the glyphs, particularly when the screen resolution is low. It has gotten better in recent years with more HiDPI screens but print still usually has better resolution.