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Came to the comments because of this. Font renders very thin on my Android device (Firefox and Chrome). Setting the default font size to 200 should strike ever

Came to the comments because of this. Font renders very thin on my Android device (Firefox and Chrome). Setting the default font size to 200 should strike every web developer as a questionable idea. It doesn't look "elegant" or anything like that to me, it just looks off and unpleasant for regular text, with the bonus of being hard to read. Recently I had to implement a web design where the default font weight was 300. Same there, just seems like a bad idea to me. Fads come and go. Ultra light fonts mostly just feel like a signifier for poorly thought-out promo content to me. Reminds me of early 2000s print ads too. Don't mean to insult the author, the same description perfectly fits the site that I had to implement.

chrismorgan 5y ago
Setting the default size to 300 should strike every web developer as questionable—outside Apple’s ecosystem (where it’s more likely to pan out), it’s just narrowly tolerable in some fonts, but in most it’s outright painful on (as probably the most extreme example) Windows with a low-DPI screen. For typical meanings of 300 weight, I’d generally say flat-out don’t use it below 20px. 200, on the other hand, is unquestionably bad for body-sized type, and no one sane will disagree. (Useful related research work here: Accessible Perceptual Contrast Algorithm, APCA, is being developed to replace the old and terrible contrast ratio calculations used in WCAG; and it takes font weight into account! https://www.myndex.com/APCA/ https://www.myndex.com/APCA/ lets you explore this and see it visually. I said a minimum of 20px for 300 weight; APCA will tend to be a little more lenient than me, and declares a minimum acceptable font size of 17px for 300 black on white.)
- moritzwarhier 5y ago
  I employed another questionable technique in that project to avoid the default font-weight of 300. The specific custom font that the design required didn't have a semibold variant, only medium. So I declared the "Light" variant as 400 in the @font-face declaration and put regular at 500, medium at 600. So many more "requirements" of this client and my employer were terrible, I tried my best to improve or avoid them. Too many animations, huge images, stupid scroll-related effects etc. There are multiple stakeholders involved and I tried my best to voice concerns and positively influence decisions. In the end I just have to move on and look for better work.

chrismorgan 5y ago

Setting the default size to 300 should strike every web developer as questionable—outside Apple’s ecosystem (where it’s more likely to pan out), it’s just narrowly tolerable in some fonts, but in most it’s outright painful on (as probably the most extreme example) Windows with a low-DPI screen. For typical meanings of 300 weight, I’d generally say flat-out don’t use it below 20px. 200, on the other hand, is unquestionably bad for body-sized type, and no one sane will disagree. (Useful related research work here: Accessible Perceptual Contrast Algorithm, APCA, is being developed to replace the old and terrible contrast ratio calculations used in WCAG; and it takes font weight into account! https://www.myndex.com/APCA/ https://www.myndex.com/APCA/ lets you explore this and see it visually. I said a minimum of 20px for 300 weight; APCA will tend to be a little more lenient than me, and declares a minimum acceptable font size of 17px for 300 black on white.)

moritzwarhier 5y ago
I employed another questionable technique in that project to avoid the default font-weight of 300. The specific custom font that the design required didn't have a semibold variant, only medium. So I declared the "Light" variant as 400 in the @font-face declaration and put regular at 500, medium at 600. So many more "requirements" of this client and my employer were terrible, I tried my best to improve or avoid them. Too many animations, huge images, stupid scroll-related effects etc. There are multiple stakeholders involved and I tried my best to voice concerns and positively influence decisions. In the end I just have to move on and look for better work.