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No, 2 is never necessary. You can set yourself apart with design just fine. The text, actual information people are trying to retrieve, is not part of the des

No, 2 is never necessary. You can set yourself apart with design just fine. The text, actual information people are trying to retrieve, is not part of the design. Specifying a font for the ordinary text is a perfect example of designers prioritizing self-obsessed wankery over the user.

kamjam 14y ago
So all of a sudden we have become a design Nazi and telling people what their website can or can't include for design. The alternative to not allowing custom fonts is that people go back to using text in images to display their custom fonts which sucks when you are dealing with multiple languages or just want to change the text for something else. Or something like Cufon [http://cufon.shoqolate.com http://cufon.shoqolate.com]. Or use flash. I think I prefer webfonts, the developers just need to be smarter about how they are used and the implementation for including them.
- papsosouid 14y ago
  Your post is both nonsense and repulsive. I suggest you read what you are replying to rather than spewing hyperbolic nazi accusations at people.
  - chc 14y ago
    You may be either very young or not an American English speaker, but the phrase "X Nazi" is American slang denoting somebody who is overly strict about whatever X is. It comes from the "Soup Nazi" episode of Seinfeld, in which a soup shop owner would evict customers from his shop with the declaration "NO SOUP FOR YOU" if they didn't follow a very precise procedure for ordering. It is not actually an accusation of Nazism.
    - papsosouid 14y ago
      That is why I said hyperbolic. It is still a very distasteful response, especially considering what it was replying to. I just read my post again, and I still can't find the part where I told "people what their website can or can't include for design".
      - chc 14y ago
        You said any designer who chooses a body text font (something designers have been doing for hundreds of years, incidentally) is guilty of "self-obsessed wankery." The difference between that and telling people what they can or can't include is pretty slim.
        papsosouid 14y ago
        No, I said a designer who chooses to make their website less usable for the user by forcing a download of a non-standard font (something that hasn't existed for hundreds of years, incidentally) is prioritizing their self-obsessed wankery over what is best for the user. The difference between that and telling people what they can and can't include is absolutely massive. I am telling web designers (people whose job is to make web content accessible to users) that making content inaccessible is bad design. I am not saying "you can not be a bad designer". You are still allowed to do a bad job. And the rest of the world is allowed to point out that you are doing a bad job. Calling someone a nazi for pointing out that bad design is bad design is not constructive, or productive.
  - kamjam 14y ago
    Specifying a font for the ordinary text is a perfect example of designers prioritizing self-obsessed wankery over the user. It's a common phrase used through the US and Europe incidently, and used in the context of what you stated I don't think it is repulsive, but chc has already explained that to you. I don't think my post is nonsense, but just like you, I am entitled to my opinion. Text is not just for reading, it is also used for design so my opinion is that web fonts have a place on the web, the developers just needed to smarter in the the implementation as I said. With all the sites done these days with HTML5 and CSS3 and using techniques such as parallax scrolling, I don't think half of them would have the effect that they do with "Arial" or "Sans Serif". The web goes beyond reading articles on on HN or NYT believe it or not.
chc 14y ago
The idea that typography has nothing to do with design is ridiculous on its face. I get that you don't like webfonts and you are welcome to that opinion, but it's silly to suggest that font selection and the placement of text isn't properly the job of a designer.
- papsosouid 14y ago
  I didn't suggest typography has nothing to do with design. Placement of text is not at issue here, font face choice is. There are many font faces already available. They were created by designers. Ones who specialize in creating fonts in fact. They are much better at it than web designers. Breaking a website so it is entirely unreadable because you feel a non-standard font is prettier is something a bad designer does. It does not help the user, which is the entire point of a web site.
  - chc 14y ago
    > I didn't suggest typography has nothing to do with design. Placement of text is not at issue here, font face choice is. Choice of typefaces is part of typography. You can't place text without a face. > There are many font faces already available. They were created by designers. Ones who specialize in creating fonts in fact. There are about 10 fonts you can rely on people having (assuming you don't care about Linux users!). Several of these are gimmicky and generally not a good choice for anything. You really don't have all that great a selection. > Breaking a website so it is entirely unreadable because you feel a non-standard font is prettier is something a bad designer does. The site isn't entirely unreadable. It just takes a little bit longer to display. A very similar thing happens when a resource takes a while to load and leaves the body text the same color as the background for a long time. I'm a big advocate of having lean sites that display fast. When I'm asked to work on a site, the first thing I suggest is usually optimizing it so everyone sees it quickly (I had the biggest smile when I managed to cut one down from 20 seconds to 1.5 seconds on a slow-ish connection). But even I think just blanket damning custom fonts is really extreme. They really can add a lot to the feel and readability of a site, and they don't always suck.
    - 14y ago
joshuacc 14y ago
I specified that #2 is sometimes necessary for a specific end (distinctive design). You seem to be arguing that one should never seek that end. I disagree, but that's an entirely different argument.
- papsosouid 14y ago
  >You seem to be arguing that one should never seek that end. Not at all. I am saying it is in no way necessary to load a non-standard font for the primary textual content in order to achieve the goal of a distinctive design. Loading a font to use for your branding is perfectly reasonable, users aren't there to read that anyways. Punishing the user by making the content not be there because you think distinctive design requires all your text to be unreadble_font_x just bad design.

kamjam 14y ago

So all of a sudden we have become a design Nazi and telling people what their website can or can't include for design. The alternative to not allowing custom fonts is that people go back to using text in images to display their custom fonts which sucks when you are dealing with multiple languages or just want to change the text for something else. Or something like Cufon [http://cufon.shoqolate.com http://cufon.shoqolate.com]. Or use flash. I think I prefer webfonts, the developers just need to be smarter about how they are used and the implementation for including them.

papsosouid 14y ago
Your post is both nonsense and repulsive. I suggest you read what you are replying to rather than spewing hyperbolic nazi accusations at people.
- chc 14y ago
  You may be either very young or not an American English speaker, but the phrase "X Nazi" is American slang denoting somebody who is overly strict about whatever X is. It comes from the "Soup Nazi" episode of Seinfeld, in which a soup shop owner would evict customers from his shop with the declaration "NO SOUP FOR YOU" if they didn't follow a very precise procedure for ordering. It is not actually an accusation of Nazism.
  - papsosouid 14y ago
    That is why I said hyperbolic. It is still a very distasteful response, especially considering what it was replying to. I just read my post again, and I still can't find the part where I told "people what their website can or can't include for design".
    - chc 14y ago
      You said any designer who chooses a body text font (something designers have been doing for hundreds of years, incidentally) is guilty of "self-obsessed wankery." The difference between that and telling people what they can or can't include is pretty slim.
      - papsosouid 14y ago
        No, I said a designer who chooses to make their website less usable for the user by forcing a download of a non-standard font (something that hasn't existed for hundreds of years, incidentally) is prioritizing their self-obsessed wankery over what is best for the user. The difference between that and telling people what they can and can't include is absolutely massive. I am telling web designers (people whose job is to make web content accessible to users) that making content inaccessible is bad design. I am not saying "you can not be a bad designer". You are still allowed to do a bad job. And the rest of the world is allowed to point out that you are doing a bad job. Calling someone a nazi for pointing out that bad design is bad design is not constructive, or productive.
- kamjam 14y ago
  Specifying a font for the ordinary text is a perfect example of designers prioritizing self-obsessed wankery over the user. It's a common phrase used through the US and Europe incidently, and used in the context of what you stated I don't think it is repulsive, but chc has already explained that to you. I don't think my post is nonsense, but just like you, I am entitled to my opinion. Text is not just for reading, it is also used for design so my opinion is that web fonts have a place on the web, the developers just needed to smarter in the the implementation as I said. With all the sites done these days with HTML5 and CSS3 and using techniques such as parallax scrolling, I don't think half of them would have the effect that they do with "Arial" or "Sans Serif". The web goes beyond reading articles on on HN or NYT believe it or not.

chc 14y ago

The idea that typography has nothing to do with design is ridiculous on its face. I get that you don't like webfonts and you are welcome to that opinion, but it's silly to suggest that font selection and the placement of text isn't properly the job of a designer.

papsosouid 14y ago
I didn't suggest typography has nothing to do with design. Placement of text is not at issue here, font face choice is. There are many font faces already available. They were created by designers. Ones who specialize in creating fonts in fact. They are much better at it than web designers. Breaking a website so it is entirely unreadable because you feel a non-standard font is prettier is something a bad designer does. It does not help the user, which is the entire point of a web site.
- chc 14y ago
  > I didn't suggest typography has nothing to do with design. Placement of text is not at issue here, font face choice is. Choice of typefaces is part of typography. You can't place text without a face. > There are many font faces already available. They were created by designers. Ones who specialize in creating fonts in fact. There are about 10 fonts you can rely on people having (assuming you don't care about Linux users!). Several of these are gimmicky and generally not a good choice for anything. You really don't have all that great a selection. > Breaking a website so it is entirely unreadable because you feel a non-standard font is prettier is something a bad designer does. The site isn't entirely unreadable. It just takes a little bit longer to display. A very similar thing happens when a resource takes a while to load and leaves the body text the same color as the background for a long time. I'm a big advocate of having lean sites that display fast. When I'm asked to work on a site, the first thing I suggest is usually optimizing it so everyone sees it quickly (I had the biggest smile when I managed to cut one down from 20 seconds to 1.5 seconds on a slow-ish connection). But even I think just blanket damning custom fonts is really extreme. They really can add a lot to the feel and readability of a site, and they don't always suck.
  - 14y ago

joshuacc 14y ago

I specified that #2 is sometimes necessary for a specific end (distinctive design). You seem to be arguing that one should never seek that end. I disagree, but that's an entirely different argument.

papsosouid 14y ago
>You seem to be arguing that one should never seek that end. Not at all. I am saying it is in no way necessary to load a non-standard font for the primary textual content in order to achieve the goal of a distinctive design. Loading a font to use for your branding is perfectly reasonable, users aren't there to read that anyways. Punishing the user by making the content not be there because you think distinctive design requires all your text to be unreadble_font_x just bad design.