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Genuine question, why is HN so obsessed with fonts? Most people do not care at all. And we all know the strange love towards comic sans from "not computer peopl

Genuine question, why is HN so obsessed with fonts? Most people do not care at all. And we all know the strange love towards comic sans from "not computer people", that might even show a complete different understanding of beauty.

daqhris 3y ago
some coders love good, eye-pleasing, or bland design. fonts are as important to visual memory as a person's outlook on the first day of a job interview. of course, it's hard to agree on the appeal or necessity of it.
johnloeber 3y ago
> "Most people do not care at all." I think that might be directly contradicted by your first sentence. People do care. Design matters, and typeface selection is a big part of that.
- tommek4077 3y ago
  HN is not "most people".
  - omnimus 3y ago
    People who love Comic Sans also care.
bodge5000 3y ago
I think they do care, it's just not something most people notice until it looks wrong. I'm not a painter-decorator, when I walk into a house I won't notice the paint colour, unless it looks terrible or clashes or something, in which case I probably will notice. There's a lot of things like that. A classic example I'm very aware of is something called "juice" in game development, which you would never notice whilst playing a game until you play one without it, at which point its immediately obvious.
wavemode 3y ago
Well, you're right that most people don't care about fonts. But people do appreciate good design, and fonts are a big part of that. Similarly, most people don't know, or care about, anything related to music theory, yet people do appreciate good music. People don't care about color theory, but they appreciate good art. You get the drift. Someone liking or disliking Comic Sans is just a matter of taste. Fonts are not design, they are just fonts. You can make a good design with Comic Sans, and you can make a bad design with the best font in the world.
beezlewax 3y ago
People do care. They might not know it, but they'll immediately recognise a badly designed or badly used font in a UI or magazine or wherever. Why?.. because it effects readability and thus their experience consuming whatever media they're looking at. If someone plastered a inappropriate font all over hackernews you'd notice right away. Good design isn't always noticeable but bad design is frequently the first thing you'll see when you open that new app and fonts are a part of that.

daqhris 3y ago

some coders love good, eye-pleasing, or bland design. fonts are as important to visual memory as a person's outlook on the first day of a job interview. of course, it's hard to agree on the appeal or necessity of it.

johnloeber 3y ago

> "Most people do not care at all." I think that might be directly contradicted by your first sentence. People do care. Design matters, and typeface selection is a big part of that.

tommek4077 3y ago
HN is not "most people".
- omnimus 3y ago
  People who love Comic Sans also care.

bodge5000 3y ago

I think they do care, it's just not something most people notice until it looks wrong. I'm not a painter-decorator, when I walk into a house I won't notice the paint colour, unless it looks terrible or clashes or something, in which case I probably will notice. There's a lot of things like that. A classic example I'm very aware of is something called "juice" in game development, which you would never notice whilst playing a game until you play one without it, at which point its immediately obvious.

wavemode 3y ago

Well, you're right that most people don't care about fonts. But people do appreciate good design, and fonts are a big part of that. Similarly, most people don't know, or care about, anything related to music theory, yet people do appreciate good music. People don't care about color theory, but they appreciate good art. You get the drift. Someone liking or disliking Comic Sans is just a matter of taste. Fonts are not design, they are just fonts. You can make a good design with Comic Sans, and you can make a bad design with the best font in the world.

beezlewax 3y ago

People do care. They might not know it, but they'll immediately recognise a badly designed or badly used font in a UI or magazine or wherever. Why?.. because it effects readability and thus their experience consuming whatever media they're looking at. If someone plastered a inappropriate font all over hackernews you'd notice right away. Good design isn't always noticeable but bad design is frequently the first thing you'll see when you open that new app and fonts are a part of that.