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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 avai

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.
- papsosouid 14y ago
  >Choice of typefaces is part of typography. That doesn't make it part of the discussion. >You really don't have all that great a selection. Now go count how many books, newspapers, magazines, etc, etc have their primary text in something other than one of the few common "standard" fonts. You don't need a big selection. The desire to make your site look weird is not actually a necessity, it is a desire. >The site isn't entirely unreadable. It just takes a little bit longer to display It is until it loads all the way, which can take quite a long time, especially on a mobile network. And yes, it is actually fairly common for some elements to timeout and not load, images, css, javascript. If you use a non-standard font for the main text, then it becomes one of those things that can fail to load. >But even I think just blanket damning custom fonts is really extreme So do I. Which is why I never did that. I am only saying that using a custom font for the primary textual content of the site is a choice that has purely negative impact on the user.
  - chc 14y ago
    > Now go count how many books, newspapers, magazines, etc, etc have their primary text in something other than one of the few common "standard" fonts. That would be most of them. The LA Times uses Ionic, the New York Times uses Imperial, the Chicago Tribune uses Mercury Text, Entertainment Weekly uses Scout — I'd actually be really hard-pressed to think of a newspaper or magazine that sets its body text in Arial or Verdana. > It is until it loads all the way, which can take quite a long time, especially on a mobile network. And yes, it is actually fairly common for some elements to timeout and not load, images, css, javascript. If you use a non-standard font for the main text, then it becomes one of those things that can fail to load. This is kind of a browser-dependent thing. I would argue that any browsers that display this behavior are flawed and should be fixed. However, even on browsers that don't handle this gracefully, you can work around it and handle it gracefully yourself. So I agree that if this happens, you have done something wrong, but using a distinct font was not the mistake — coding your site in such a way that your body text might never display was the core problem.
    - papsosouid 14y ago
      >That would be most of them Really? Of the millions of books, most of them use a special font? The hundreds of thousands of little local papers all have their own special font? Do a tiny minority who use a "virtually indistinguishable from Times" really constitute most of them? Is a font that <0.000001% of people can distinguish from Times really creating a unique and distinct design? >I'd actually be really hard-pressed to think of a newspaper or magazine that sets its body text in Arial or Verdana. I'd be hard pressed to think of one that uses comic sans too, that reflects on comic sans, not the necessity of unique fonts.
      - chc 14y ago
        > Really? Of the millions of books, most of them use a special font? They use something a fair sight better than what's available to web designers. Whether a font is "special" or not is kinda subjective. I would not consider Ubuntu to be any more "special" than Garamond. But they certainly do not feel constrained to use a handful of fonts Microsoft licensed back in the '90s. > The hundreds of thousands of little local papers all have their own special font? Nobody said anything about "their own special font." Any paper big enough to hire a designer probably uses something more than Arial and Times New Roman. > Is a font that <0.000001% of people can distinguish from Times really creating a unique and distinct design? I guess that depends. Do you think more than 0.000001% of the population could distinguish Georgia from Times? Many people couldn't name a font if you put a gun to their head, but that doesn't mean different fonts don't matter at all. (If you do want to argue that fonts don't matter at all beyond serif and sans serif, you're welcome to that opinion, but I'm not really interested in getting into that.) >> I'd actually be really hard-pressed to think of a newspaper or magazine that sets its body text in Arial or Verdana. > I'd be hard pressed to think of one that uses comic sans too, that reflects on comic sans, not the necessity of unique fonts. We have just dismissed about 30% of the fonts available to web developers under your criteria. Do you still feel like they have a good selection? Also, again, nobody said unique fonts. A font does not have to be unique to fit a design better than another font.
mfsch 14y ago
Your argument can be extended to most of website design. The identity of a design and the impact on accessibility are two factors that constantly have to be weighted against each other in web design. Do you choose a slightly gray text color which improves the overall appearance of the text but reduces the contrast? Do you include images? There are hundreds of excellent text fonts out there and the more you work with them, the more you realize that they do have different characteristics other than the serif/non-serif distinction. Only a handful of fonts are installed on most computers, so the decision becomes: Do you choose a font that doesn’t really fit the design in order to safe a moment when loading the page or do you go with a web font and optimize the loading procedure (CDN…) and get a coherent design? Can you express more of the visual identity by removing an image and including a web font instead?
- papsosouid 14y ago
  >Your argument can be extended to most of website design. Certainly, as it should be. >Do you choose a slightly gray text color which improves the overall appearance of the text but reduces the contrast No, you do not. Good example. >Do you include images? Including images does not make the site inaccessible. Bad example. >Can you express more of the visual identity by removing an image and including a web font instead? We're talking about the primary textual content of the site. Not a header, or a menu item, or a title. Very few people are crazy enough to render the entire text of their site as an image.
  - thedufer 14y ago
    >No, you do not. Good example. This. This is the reason people are reacting poorly to what you're saying. Pretending that a sweeping statement like that can cover every possible website is _absurd_. The same goes for webfonts. The question you're answering was not meant to be answered by you. It has to be weighed by each site designer. Saying otherwise is offensive to the people who take the time to answer those kind of questions differently for each project they work on.
    - papsosouid 14y ago

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.

papsosouid 14y ago
>Choice of typefaces is part of typography. That doesn't make it part of the discussion. >You really don't have all that great a selection. Now go count how many books, newspapers, magazines, etc, etc have their primary text in something other than one of the few common "standard" fonts. You don't need a big selection. The desire to make your site look weird is not actually a necessity, it is a desire. >The site isn't entirely unreadable. It just takes a little bit longer to display It is until it loads all the way, which can take quite a long time, especially on a mobile network. And yes, it is actually fairly common for some elements to timeout and not load, images, css, javascript. If you use a non-standard font for the main text, then it becomes one of those things that can fail to load. >But even I think just blanket damning custom fonts is really extreme So do I. Which is why I never did that. I am only saying that using a custom font for the primary textual content of the site is a choice that has purely negative impact on the user.
- chc 14y ago
  > Now go count how many books, newspapers, magazines, etc, etc have their primary text in something other than one of the few common "standard" fonts. That would be most of them. The LA Times uses Ionic, the New York Times uses Imperial, the Chicago Tribune uses Mercury Text, Entertainment Weekly uses Scout — I'd actually be really hard-pressed to think of a newspaper or magazine that sets its body text in Arial or Verdana. > It is until it loads all the way, which can take quite a long time, especially on a mobile network. And yes, it is actually fairly common for some elements to timeout and not load, images, css, javascript. If you use a non-standard font for the main text, then it becomes one of those things that can fail to load. This is kind of a browser-dependent thing. I would argue that any browsers that display this behavior are flawed and should be fixed. However, even on browsers that don't handle this gracefully, you can work around it and handle it gracefully yourself. So I agree that if this happens, you have done something wrong, but using a distinct font was not the mistake — coding your site in such a way that your body text might never display was the core problem.
  - papsosouid 14y ago
    >That would be most of them Really? Of the millions of books, most of them use a special font? The hundreds of thousands of little local papers all have their own special font? Do a tiny minority who use a "virtually indistinguishable from Times" really constitute most of them? Is a font that <0.000001% of people can distinguish from Times really creating a unique and distinct design? >I'd actually be really hard-pressed to think of a newspaper or magazine that sets its body text in Arial or Verdana. I'd be hard pressed to think of one that uses comic sans too, that reflects on comic sans, not the necessity of unique fonts.
    - chc 14y ago
      > Really? Of the millions of books, most of them use a special font? They use something a fair sight better than what's available to web designers. Whether a font is "special" or not is kinda subjective. I would not consider Ubuntu to be any more "special" than Garamond. But they certainly do not feel constrained to use a handful of fonts Microsoft licensed back in the '90s. > The hundreds of thousands of little local papers all have their own special font? Nobody said anything about "their own special font." Any paper big enough to hire a designer probably uses something more than Arial and Times New Roman. > Is a font that <0.000001% of people can distinguish from Times really creating a unique and distinct design? I guess that depends. Do you think more than 0.000001% of the population could distinguish Georgia from Times? Many people couldn't name a font if you put a gun to their head, but that doesn't mean different fonts don't matter at all. (If you do want to argue that fonts don't matter at all beyond serif and sans serif, you're welcome to that opinion, but I'm not really interested in getting into that.) >> I'd actually be really hard-pressed to think of a newspaper or magazine that sets its body text in Arial or Verdana. > I'd be hard pressed to think of one that uses comic sans too, that reflects on comic sans, not the necessity of unique fonts. We have just dismissed about 30% of the fonts available to web developers under your criteria. Do you still feel like they have a good selection? Also, again, nobody said unique fonts. A font does not have to be unique to fit a design better than another font.

mfsch 14y ago

Your argument can be extended to most of website design. The identity of a design and the impact on accessibility are two factors that constantly have to be weighted against each other in web design. Do you choose a slightly gray text color which improves the overall appearance of the text but reduces the contrast? Do you include images? There are hundreds of excellent text fonts out there and the more you work with them, the more you realize that they do have different characteristics other than the serif/non-serif distinction. Only a handful of fonts are installed on most computers, so the decision becomes: Do you choose a font that doesn’t really fit the design in order to safe a moment when loading the page or do you go with a web font and optimize the loading procedure (CDN…) and get a coherent design? Can you express more of the visual identity by removing an image and including a web font instead?

papsosouid 14y ago
>Your argument can be extended to most of website design. Certainly, as it should be. >Do you choose a slightly gray text color which improves the overall appearance of the text but reduces the contrast No, you do not. Good example. >Do you include images? Including images does not make the site inaccessible. Bad example. >Can you express more of the visual identity by removing an image and including a web font instead? We're talking about the primary textual content of the site. Not a header, or a menu item, or a title. Very few people are crazy enough to render the entire text of their site as an image.
- thedufer 14y ago
  >No, you do not. Good example. This. This is the reason people are reacting poorly to what you're saying. Pretending that a sweeping statement like that can cover every possible website is _absurd_. The same goes for webfonts. The question you're answering was not meant to be answered by you. It has to be weighed by each site designer. Saying otherwise is offensive to the people who take the time to answer those kind of questions differently for each project they work on.
  - papsosouid 14y ago