3 ms·

Reminder that fonts are subjective. This one is good for specific people, not everyone. I can't use it because I find it overly rounded with tics. An example

Reminder that fonts are subjective. This one is good for specific people, not everyone. I can't use it because I find it overly rounded with tics. An example of a font that is also meant to be legible, but is on the squarish side, is Tiresias Screenfont. Increased legibility does NOT mean "flow". Just because each character is more "distinct" does not mean that the whole word is able to be processed with ease. Important to evaluate them in body text. Also, one's cultural background absolutely affects which fonts are preferred. If you grew up with German blackletter writing, you're not necessarily going to like or appreciate a sans-serif font. In Germany's case, the change from blackletter to latin shapes happened fairly recently (WW2). It's happening now again, Kazakhstan has decided to stop using cyrillic and change to latin characters.

KronisLV 4y ago
> An example of a font that is also meant to be legible, but is on the squarish side, is Tiresias Screenfont. Here's a quick example that a DuckDuckGo search turned up: https://catalog.monotype.com/font/bitstream/tiresias/screenfont https://catalog.monotype.com/font/bitstream/tiresias/screenf... Personally, I rather liked the Atkinson Hyperlegible as well, though I found the "bgrpq" characters too similar in shape regardless, but maybe that's a criticism of the alphabet itself. Regardless, a lot of the time I find myself using whatever is popular (e.g. Open Sans for web development) or something like Liberation Mono for writing code (though the rest of the Liberation fonts are great alternatives to Microsoft fonts, for example, when using LibreOffice). Open Sans: https://www.opensans.com/ https://www.opensans.com/ Liberation fonts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts
jackblemming 4y ago
>Reminder that fonts are subjective. Yes but you can survey a fraction of a population and make strong statistical claims such as, “most people found so and so font more readable”.
- Sunspark 4y ago
  Which population though? There are differences in age groups. People who grew up only with print won't lean toward a sans. People who grew up only with screens will lean toward sans, etc. If you go with that metric of doing a survey, then the answer is Times New Roman and Arial, not because they are superior (though they have excellent hinting) but due to long-term familiarity and exposure. I don't have a problem with providing what people are comfortable with, but comfort does not necessarily translate to better. It's subjective. Companies commissioning their own fonts, is not due to a desire to get improved quality, but simply to not have to pay a licensing fee for usage.
  - jackblemming 4y ago
    >Which population though? The best population to sample would probably be the readers of your content. >If you go with that metric of doing a survey, then the answer is Times New Roman and Arial, not because they are superior (though they have excellent hinting) but due to long-term familiarity and exposure. I don't know the answer to this because I didn't do any studies. I'm probably reasonable to assume you didn't either, and thus should be careful about making such assertions. >I don't have a problem with providing what people are comfortable with, but comfort does not necessarily translate to better. I don't know what you define as "better", or what you're trying to get at. >Companies commissioning their own fonts, is not due to a desire to get improved quality, but simply to not have to pay a licensing fee for usage. Could be. This is a pessimistic take, and I'm sure it's right sometimes and wrong other times.
  - samatman 4y ago
    Fonts can be a core part of a company's brand identity, the present-day fad for incredibly bland Helvetica in a solid color notwithstanding.
mcdonje 4y ago
Preference has nothing to do with legibility.
boltzmann-brain 4y ago
There's something that feels... off about this font. The horizontal rhythm is out of whack here. I don't know what it is, I'm not a font designer, and the last time I looked into details of that was 20 years ago. Bad hinting? I don't know.
- noir_lord 4y ago
  I think the technical term is `kerning` (though also not a typography person).

KronisLV 4y ago

> An example of a font that is also meant to be legible, but is on the squarish side, is Tiresias Screenfont. Here's a quick example that a DuckDuckGo search turned up: https://catalog.monotype.com/font/bitstream/tiresias/screenfont https://catalog.monotype.com/font/bitstream/tiresias/screenf... Personally, I rather liked the Atkinson Hyperlegible as well, though I found the "bgrpq" characters too similar in shape regardless, but maybe that's a criticism of the alphabet itself. Regardless, a lot of the time I find myself using whatever is popular (e.g. Open Sans for web development) or something like Liberation Mono for writing code (though the rest of the Liberation fonts are great alternatives to Microsoft fonts, for example, when using LibreOffice). Open Sans: https://www.opensans.com/ https://www.opensans.com/ Liberation fonts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts

jackblemming 4y ago

>Reminder that fonts are subjective. Yes but you can survey a fraction of a population and make strong statistical claims such as, “most people found so and so font more readable”.

Sunspark 4y ago
Which population though? There are differences in age groups. People who grew up only with print won't lean toward a sans. People who grew up only with screens will lean toward sans, etc. If you go with that metric of doing a survey, then the answer is Times New Roman and Arial, not because they are superior (though they have excellent hinting) but due to long-term familiarity and exposure. I don't have a problem with providing what people are comfortable with, but comfort does not necessarily translate to better. It's subjective. Companies commissioning their own fonts, is not due to a desire to get improved quality, but simply to not have to pay a licensing fee for usage.
- jackblemming 4y ago
  >Which population though? The best population to sample would probably be the readers of your content. >If you go with that metric of doing a survey, then the answer is Times New Roman and Arial, not because they are superior (though they have excellent hinting) but due to long-term familiarity and exposure. I don't know the answer to this because I didn't do any studies. I'm probably reasonable to assume you didn't either, and thus should be careful about making such assertions. >I don't have a problem with providing what people are comfortable with, but comfort does not necessarily translate to better. I don't know what you define as "better", or what you're trying to get at. >Companies commissioning their own fonts, is not due to a desire to get improved quality, but simply to not have to pay a licensing fee for usage. Could be. This is a pessimistic take, and I'm sure it's right sometimes and wrong other times.
- samatman 4y ago
  Fonts can be a core part of a company's brand identity, the present-day fad for incredibly bland Helvetica in a solid color notwithstanding.

mcdonje 4y ago

Preference has nothing to do with legibility.

boltzmann-brain 4y ago

There's something that feels... off about this font. The horizontal rhythm is out of whack here. I don't know what it is, I'm not a font designer, and the last time I looked into details of that was 20 years ago. Bad hinting? I don't know.

noir_lord 4y ago
I think the technical term is `kerning` (though also not a typography person).