4 ms·

I like good website design and that "good design" evolves every year. But how many hours have been spent tweaking fonts in the English language by how many bril

I like good website design and that "good design" evolves every year. But how many hours have been spent tweaking fonts in the English language by how many brilliant and creative people? I wish we could all save each other the time, by agreeing to use a single font in a dozen iterations (e.g. "Universal Serif" vs "Universal Sans" vs. "Universal Fixed Width", like Noto or whatever) It should be a social imposition to use a different font. Like: yes, you can do it and people do, but keep in mind you're exercising your right to be creative at the expense of everybody's comfort/convenience, in the same way as a busker on the subway. If you're very good at what you're doing then you might be brightening everybody's day. But if you're even average at it, you're only annoying people and they will tolerate that annoyance out of social obligation, not because they like it. That would save everybody the hours, days, and sometimes weeks of picking a font, a keming, a line-spacing, etc, not to mention the annoyance of having to read awkward fonts. https://fonts.google.com/noto https://fonts.google.com/noto

cactus2093 5y ago
I feel like Helvetica is essentially Universal Sans, but thanks to licensing fees we've been forced to re-invent that wheel over and over. > But if you're even average at it, you're only annoying people and they will tolerate that annoyance out of social obligation, not because they like it. I think this part is already implicitly understood, but everyone thinks that they're above average or that their app is special enough that it really needs a custom font.
- SonOfLilit 5y ago
  In Sweden everything is in Helvetica. It's really hard to spot text in other fonts except for (rare) logos.
- LordDragonfang 5y ago
  > but thanks to licensing fees we've been forced to re-invent that wheel over and over. The fact that licensing fees are even an obstacle here for adoption of a font designed over half a century ago highlights how broken the current intellectual property laws are. At some point of near-universal adoption, a functioning society should just release such a thing into the public domain and provide the original author a pension for his troubles, instead of worrying about rent-seeker from every amateur designer.
echelon 5y ago
Design is good. It employs a lot of people. At the other end of the spectrum, we could continue to employ the same typography and UI primitives reusably and forever, getting rid of or repurposing design efforts and design people. Both choices have trade offs. The market selected our current methodology and practices, and not for a lack of alternatives, for better or worse. Design is thought to distinguish your brand and elevate your experiences. Maybe not everything truly needs this, but I don't see enough compelling evidence showing how to compete without it. The market says design is important.
ashton314 5y ago
This sounds a little similar to the hubris of the GNU moe [1] manual. You're assuming you could make a "good enough" font that would truly be "good enough". I don't think you can even come close. A font adds so much character to the text. Where one font may be appropriate, a different text would look stilted or silly. Fiction, fantasy, technical, non-technical non-fiction, etc. books all require different fonts, in my opinion, to capture the character of the words. Noto is a fine font, but I don't want to use it for my blog. There are a bajillion fonts that are perfectly legible and for those of us who care, they make a difference. What would help would be a little education and maybe some UX nudges: stop making Arial the default on stuff, (looking at you, Google Docs) encourage well-built fonts by making them the only default enabled options in your OS, etc. I don't think there is "one font to rule them all", however. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29990149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29990149
- nomel 5y ago
  > that would truly be "good enough". I think 99% of the population could agree on a "good enough" font, if reading comprehension is the goal. In fact, I think 99% of the population just reads the words. Our brains necessarily learn to ignore the fonts. Our brains necessarily learn to ignore even the characters themselves [1]. > There are a bajillion fonts that are perfectly legible and for those of us who care, they make a difference. I think this demonstrates that the goal is not reading comprehension, which makes agreeing on some "good enough" difficult/impossible. 1: https://www.livescience.com/18392-reading-jumbled-words.html https://www.livescience.com/18392-reading-jumbled-words.html
michaelgrafl 5y ago
Isn't that what we're doing already? I don't notice a lot of creative font choices these days. More than in the days of Verdana, Arial, and Times; but not by much. The only sites with more daring typography seem to be artist portfolios or band websites. If there were still a culture of handmade amateur websites I guess we'd have more outsider art variety. But I don't really see it.
wombatpm 5y ago
> That would save everybody the hours, days, and sometimes weeks of picking a font, a keming, a line-spacing, etc, not to mention the annoyance of having to read awkward fonts. Thanks for the LOL moment. I had to look closely to see if you had typed kerning or keming
- unsupp0rted 5y ago
  Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1015/ https://xkcd.com/1015/
- Sateeshm 5y ago
  r/keming
preommr 5y ago
obligatory xkcd about how standards proliferate
hinkley 5y ago
Everybody thinks they are exceptional.

cactus2093 5y ago

I feel like Helvetica is essentially Universal Sans, but thanks to licensing fees we've been forced to re-invent that wheel over and over. > But if you're even average at it, you're only annoying people and they will tolerate that annoyance out of social obligation, not because they like it. I think this part is already implicitly understood, but everyone thinks that they're above average or that their app is special enough that it really needs a custom font.

SonOfLilit 5y ago
In Sweden everything is in Helvetica. It's really hard to spot text in other fonts except for (rare) logos.
LordDragonfang 5y ago
> but thanks to licensing fees we've been forced to re-invent that wheel over and over. The fact that licensing fees are even an obstacle here for adoption of a font designed over half a century ago highlights how broken the current intellectual property laws are. At some point of near-universal adoption, a functioning society should just release such a thing into the public domain and provide the original author a pension for his troubles, instead of worrying about rent-seeker from every amateur designer.

echelon 5y ago

Design is good. It employs a lot of people. At the other end of the spectrum, we could continue to employ the same typography and UI primitives reusably and forever, getting rid of or repurposing design efforts and design people. Both choices have trade offs. The market selected our current methodology and practices, and not for a lack of alternatives, for better or worse. Design is thought to distinguish your brand and elevate your experiences. Maybe not everything truly needs this, but I don't see enough compelling evidence showing how to compete without it. The market says design is important.

ashton314 5y ago

This sounds a little similar to the hubris of the GNU moe [1] manual. You're assuming you could make a "good enough" font that would truly be "good enough". I don't think you can even come close. A font adds so much character to the text. Where one font may be appropriate, a different text would look stilted or silly. Fiction, fantasy, technical, non-technical non-fiction, etc. books all require different fonts, in my opinion, to capture the character of the words. Noto is a fine font, but I don't want to use it for my blog. There are a bajillion fonts that are perfectly legible and for those of us who care, they make a difference. What would help would be a little education and maybe some UX nudges: stop making Arial the default on stuff, (looking at you, Google Docs) encourage well-built fonts by making them the only default enabled options in your OS, etc. I don't think there is "one font to rule them all", however. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29990149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29990149

nomel 5y ago
> that would truly be "good enough". I think 99% of the population could agree on a "good enough" font, if reading comprehension is the goal. In fact, I think 99% of the population just reads the words. Our brains necessarily learn to ignore the fonts. Our brains necessarily learn to ignore even the characters themselves [1]. > There are a bajillion fonts that are perfectly legible and for those of us who care, they make a difference. I think this demonstrates that the goal is not reading comprehension, which makes agreeing on some "good enough" difficult/impossible. 1: https://www.livescience.com/18392-reading-jumbled-words.html https://www.livescience.com/18392-reading-jumbled-words.html

michaelgrafl 5y ago

Isn't that what we're doing already? I don't notice a lot of creative font choices these days. More than in the days of Verdana, Arial, and Times; but not by much. The only sites with more daring typography seem to be artist portfolios or band websites. If there were still a culture of handmade amateur websites I guess we'd have more outsider art variety. But I don't really see it.

wombatpm 5y ago

> That would save everybody the hours, days, and sometimes weeks of picking a font, a keming, a line-spacing, etc, not to mention the annoyance of having to read awkward fonts. Thanks for the LOL moment. I had to look closely to see if you had typed kerning or keming

unsupp0rted 5y ago
Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1015/ https://xkcd.com/1015/
Sateeshm 5y ago
r/keming

preommr 5y ago

obligatory xkcd about how standards proliferate

hinkley 5y ago

Everybody thinks they are exceptional.