4 ms·

Frustro, sounds like a lot of the fonts on blogs and websites designed by people who only test on Macbooks these days. I wish people focused less on how pretty

by davedx 15y ago

Frustro, sounds like a lot of the fonts on blogs and websites designed by people who only test on Macbooks these days. I wish people focused less on how pretty their custom font was and more on its readability.

marcusf 15y ago
Typeface design is as much art as it is anything else, and this is firmly in the art camp and not concerned primarily with legibility (kinda like an issue of Raygun). I like it, it made me smile.
awolf 15y ago
First: it's not a font, it's a typeface. Second: This typeface is a creative expression. Readability is but one of many goals that a new typeface can have.
- c1sc0 15y ago
  Right on! ... Quote: The man who invented the Macintosh and misnamed what should be the “typefaces” menu the “fonts” menu. He never forgave himself for his incorrect usage of English. ~ Aza Rasking (source: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/my-father-final-gift/ http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/my-father-final-gift/)
  - narkee 15y ago
    I don't understand that distinction. In selecting a typeface, you're also necessarily selecting the font, so why make the distinction? From an artistic and technical point of view I get it, but from a user perspective the two are not separable quantities.
    - ars 15y ago
      > In selecting a typeface, you're also necessarily selecting the font No, the reverse of that. A typeface of the overall look, a font specifies the size and things like bold, italic. So what is commonly called the font is really the typeface, and what is called the size is actually the font. Back when fonts of a specific size were physical thing this mattered a lot - you only had a limited number of fonts for each typeface.
      - Drbble 15y ago
        Typeface plus size plus bold/italic/etc is the font.
VMG 15y ago
This font is going to be used on posters for art exhibitions and the like. It is designed to catch your attention, not for reading.
- dredmorbius 15y ago
  I'm sure the same argument was made for comic sans as well.
  - Drbble 15y ago
    A Microsoft Blogger explained that comic sans was designed for a Clippy-like feature that never shipped.
grantheaslip 15y ago
I think the others who replied to this are missing the point -- he's complaining about the number of sites with fonts that look blurry, jagged, or just plain hideous on many text rendering engines (especially, but by no means limited to, Windows). One could argue this is Microsoft's fault, and there's probably some credence to that, but it's kind of beside the point. Far too many sites seem to have been designed on OS X and not tested anywhere else, and it's an obnoxious, lazy, and frankly elitist practice that needs to end. Another related syndrome are sites designed on professional-grade monitors, with no thought given to how they're going to look on the other 95% of screens. This kind of shit is like engineering a car in California and just assuming it will work well in February in Montreal.
- nknight 15y ago
  Not having pretty font rendering must be so hard on the poor Windows minority, suffering under the stifling oppression of the Mac OS majority... Oh wait... Seriously, if you want pretty font rendering, complain to Microsoft. The problem isn't that the sites are designed on Mac OS, it's just that Windows' font rendering sucks. It's horrific. We can't fix that. What is it you want us to do, put all text in images? That's been the traditional response to your platform's horrific font rendering.
  - function_seven 15y ago
    Pragmatically-speaking, image rendering or choosing another font are the only way your site is going to look good on a Windows (or other, non-OSX) machine. You're correct in that the font-rendering used on Windows machines is geared toward different goals that that on Macs, but that fact doesn't make the web page look any better to the user using a PC. And they're going to blame you for using a custom font, not Microsoft. I don't understand the point of your sarcasm in the first line. The idea is that Mac users are overrepresented in the web-designer community vs. the user community. So in essence, there exist a significant number of websites that appear to have never been tested in non-OSX browsers, for it they were, it would be apparent to the designer that they look like shit in those environments.

by davedx 15y ago

marcusf 15y ago

Typeface design is as much art as it is anything else, and this is firmly in the art camp and not concerned primarily with legibility (kinda like an issue of Raygun). I like it, it made me smile.

awolf 15y ago

First: it's not a font, it's a typeface. Second: This typeface is a creative expression. Readability is but one of many goals that a new typeface can have.

c1sc0 15y ago
Right on! ... Quote: The man who invented the Macintosh and misnamed what should be the “typefaces” menu the “fonts” menu. He never forgave himself for his incorrect usage of English. ~ Aza Rasking (source: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/my-father-final-gift/ http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/my-father-final-gift/)
- narkee 15y ago
  I don't understand that distinction. In selecting a typeface, you're also necessarily selecting the font, so why make the distinction? From an artistic and technical point of view I get it, but from a user perspective the two are not separable quantities.
  - ars 15y ago
    > In selecting a typeface, you're also necessarily selecting the font No, the reverse of that. A typeface of the overall look, a font specifies the size and things like bold, italic. So what is commonly called the font is really the typeface, and what is called the size is actually the font. Back when fonts of a specific size were physical thing this mattered a lot - you only had a limited number of fonts for each typeface.
    - Drbble 15y ago
      Typeface plus size plus bold/italic/etc is the font.

VMG 15y ago

This font is going to be used on posters for art exhibitions and the like. It is designed to catch your attention, not for reading.

dredmorbius 15y ago
I'm sure the same argument was made for comic sans as well.
- Drbble 15y ago
  A Microsoft Blogger explained that comic sans was designed for a Clippy-like feature that never shipped.

grantheaslip 15y ago

I think the others who replied to this are missing the point -- he's complaining about the number of sites with fonts that look blurry, jagged, or just plain hideous on many text rendering engines (especially, but by no means limited to, Windows). One could argue this is Microsoft's fault, and there's probably some credence to that, but it's kind of beside the point. Far too many sites seem to have been designed on OS X and not tested anywhere else, and it's an obnoxious, lazy, and frankly elitist practice that needs to end. Another related syndrome are sites designed on professional-grade monitors, with no thought given to how they're going to look on the other 95% of screens. This kind of shit is like engineering a car in California and just assuming it will work well in February in Montreal.

nknight 15y ago
Not having pretty font rendering must be so hard on the poor Windows minority, suffering under the stifling oppression of the Mac OS majority... Oh wait... Seriously, if you want pretty font rendering, complain to Microsoft. The problem isn't that the sites are designed on Mac OS, it's just that Windows' font rendering sucks. It's horrific. We can't fix that. What is it you want us to do, put all text in images? That's been the traditional response to your platform's horrific font rendering.
- function_seven 15y ago
  Pragmatically-speaking, image rendering or choosing another font are the only way your site is going to look good on a Windows (or other, non-OSX) machine. You're correct in that the font-rendering used on Windows machines is geared toward different goals that that on Macs, but that fact doesn't make the web page look any better to the user using a PC. And they're going to blame you for using a custom font, not Microsoft. I don't understand the point of your sarcasm in the first line. The idea is that Mac users are overrepresented in the web-designer community vs. the user community. So in essence, there exist a significant number of websites that appear to have never been tested in non-OSX browsers, for it they were, it would be apparent to the designer that they look like shit in those environments.