7 ms·

I'm not a font specialists, but those I's seem to have serifs [1], and mixing serif with non-serif kind of irks me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I#Forms_and_v

I'm not a font specialists, but those I's seem to have serifs [1], and mixing serif with non-serif kind of irks me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I#Forms_and_variants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I#Forms_and_variants

aidos 13y ago
Genuine question, does it matter? I, for one, am enjoying being able to distinguish a capital I from a lowercase l :)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- taylorbuley 13y ago
  An answer this very smart person drew was that there's not sufficient data to back statements about legibility http://alexpoole.info/blog/which-are-more-legible-serif-or-sans-serif-typefaces/ http://alexpoole.info/blog/which-are-more-legible-serif-or-s... That said, I as a news designer I believe there to be conventional reasons for using, for example, sans serifs for headlines and serifs for large blocks of body text.
  - pseut 13y ago
    Did you look at the typeface? Sure, regarding serif vs sans serif in general, but the "I" and "l" in this case are pretty damn different.
  - tripzilch 13y ago
    Great article, thanks for the link. I like how the conclusion is that it basically doesn't matter, but by all means use what seems to be the preferred choice for the target audience and/or aesthetic considerations. By the way, what is it with all these people (in the comments) misspelling "Arial" as "Ariel"? They don't misspell any of the other fonts (ok I saw one person write "Veranda"), is it some kind of in-joke? Or is it people that don't have Arial installed and never see the word in their font listings? (in which case I'm not too sure on their opinions about it, particularly since it requires quite the expert eye to distinguish it from the beloved Helvetica)
- leobelle 13y ago
  What's a word where that is a problem? In coding it would be a problem, but I don't use sans-serif flexible width fonts when writing code. Edit: asking a question == downvote. I never said it wasn't a problem. Spending more time on lobste.rs anyway, this place is declining at breakneck speeds.
  - ngpio 13y ago
    It's not just about words. Written media is no longer limited to a few basic structures and voices. Grammar needs to be able to shift away from English in-line while maintaining semantic clarity, and sometimes that means the reader needs to distinguish between graphemes without any of the typical contextual cues that classic written languages provide. The most common issue is hand-copying a piece of text between devices, such as a cryptocurrency address or a URL. Sure, it would be great if those sorts of non-linguistic bits of information were always tagged appropriately such that they show up in a different font, but that rarely happens in reality. Even here, on Hacker News, we can only talk in plaintext with a few minor markup features. A general-purpose web font should be able to handle a variety of linguistic and non-linguistic strings and not choke up on edge cases. In that respect, I really like the differentiation between a capital I and a lowercase L in Clear Sans, no matter the inclusion of 'Sans' in its name.
  - aidos 13y ago
    As someone who spent embarrassingly long trying to log in to a system one afternoon because I was misreading an "l" as an "I", I can say that it does sometimes matter - it doesn't need to be in the same word. Then again, since you set the challenge - lamb and Iamb I can see no good reason for us to ever use the same symbol to represent two different letters, that's just silly business. Edit: for the record, I didn't downvote you. Interestingly enough, I just noticed that it looks as though I can no longer downvote direct replies to my comments. Seems like a reasonable rule to have in place.
  - RyanMcGreal 13y ago
    A password with any of these characters might give you trouble if they're not easily distinguishable: I1l
  - 13y ago
tompagenet2 13y ago
I like the ability to have different glyphs for lower case L, capital I and numeral 1. Many fonts achieve that with a tail on the lower case L, but this seems a valid alternative. By the way, I believe this is the default Firefox Android font.
normloman 13y ago
It's more common than you think. Take Verdana's capital I: http://www.identifont.com/show?XG http://www.identifont.com/show?XG
crystaln 13y ago
It irks you because of some design principle you read somewhere, or because it's actually a problem. This is true of many fonts, and is a rational choice.
PhasmaFelis 13y ago
Thank God for that, and I wish it was a universal standard. Fonts where you can't tell the difference between capital eye, lowercase ell, and numeral one are a pain in the ass. Improving legibility doesn't violate the purity of sans-serif.
eps 13y ago
Make sure then to stay clear of those slabs, slab-serifs, semi-serifs and various in-betweens. Type designers just really don't know any shame these days.
chavesn 13y ago
Although they seem to be considered serifs[1], I wouldn't call it stock-standard "mixing", since it's fairly common[2]: - Verdana (the font of this very comment: "I") - Tahoma - Officina Sans - Bell Gothic - Apple Monaco [3] - Adobe Source Code Pro [4] [1]: http://www.typophile.com/node/45715 http://www.typophile.com/node/45715 [2]: http://typophile.com/node/50393 http://typophile.com/node/50393 [3]: http://myfonts.us/td-LJbtZv http://myfonts.us/td-LJbtZv [4]: http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2012/09/source-code-pro.html http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2012/09/source-code-pro....
- dghf 13y ago
  > Verdana (the font of this very comment: "I") Weird. I'm seeing it in Adobe Source Sans Pro, where that "I" has no serifs.
dangayle 13y ago
This image I made back in 2009 illustrates perfectly why having limited serifs in a sans-serif typeface can increase comprehension: http://i.imgur.com/Jgj17qR.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Jgj17qR.jpg

aidos 13y ago

Genuine question, does it matter? I, for one, am enjoying being able to distinguish a capital I from a lowercase l :)

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
taylorbuley 13y ago
An answer this very smart person drew was that there's not sufficient data to back statements about legibility http://alexpoole.info/blog/which-are-more-legible-serif-or-sans-serif-typefaces/ http://alexpoole.info/blog/which-are-more-legible-serif-or-s... That said, I as a news designer I believe there to be conventional reasons for using, for example, sans serifs for headlines and serifs for large blocks of body text.
- pseut 13y ago
  Did you look at the typeface? Sure, regarding serif vs sans serif in general, but the "I" and "l" in this case are pretty damn different.
- tripzilch 13y ago
  Great article, thanks for the link. I like how the conclusion is that it basically doesn't matter, but by all means use what seems to be the preferred choice for the target audience and/or aesthetic considerations. By the way, what is it with all these people (in the comments) misspelling "Arial" as "Ariel"? They don't misspell any of the other fonts (ok I saw one person write "Veranda"), is it some kind of in-joke? Or is it people that don't have Arial installed and never see the word in their font listings? (in which case I'm not too sure on their opinions about it, particularly since it requires quite the expert eye to distinguish it from the beloved Helvetica)
leobelle 13y ago
What's a word where that is a problem? In coding it would be a problem, but I don't use sans-serif flexible width fonts when writing code. Edit: asking a question == downvote. I never said it wasn't a problem. Spending more time on lobste.rs anyway, this place is declining at breakneck speeds.
- ngpio 13y ago
  It's not just about words. Written media is no longer limited to a few basic structures and voices. Grammar needs to be able to shift away from English in-line while maintaining semantic clarity, and sometimes that means the reader needs to distinguish between graphemes without any of the typical contextual cues that classic written languages provide. The most common issue is hand-copying a piece of text between devices, such as a cryptocurrency address or a URL. Sure, it would be great if those sorts of non-linguistic bits of information were always tagged appropriately such that they show up in a different font, but that rarely happens in reality. Even here, on Hacker News, we can only talk in plaintext with a few minor markup features. A general-purpose web font should be able to handle a variety of linguistic and non-linguistic strings and not choke up on edge cases. In that respect, I really like the differentiation between a capital I and a lowercase L in Clear Sans, no matter the inclusion of 'Sans' in its name.
- aidos 13y ago
  As someone who spent embarrassingly long trying to log in to a system one afternoon because I was misreading an "l" as an "I", I can say that it does sometimes matter - it doesn't need to be in the same word. Then again, since you set the challenge - lamb and Iamb I can see no good reason for us to ever use the same symbol to represent two different letters, that's just silly business. Edit: for the record, I didn't downvote you. Interestingly enough, I just noticed that it looks as though I can no longer downvote direct replies to my comments. Seems like a reasonable rule to have in place.
- RyanMcGreal 13y ago
  A password with any of these characters might give you trouble if they're not easily distinguishable: I1l
- 13y ago

tompagenet2 13y ago

I like the ability to have different glyphs for lower case L, capital I and numeral 1. Many fonts achieve that with a tail on the lower case L, but this seems a valid alternative. By the way, I believe this is the default Firefox Android font.

normloman 13y ago

It's more common than you think. Take Verdana's capital I: http://www.identifont.com/show?XG http://www.identifont.com/show?XG

crystaln 13y ago

It irks you because of some design principle you read somewhere, or because it's actually a problem. This is true of many fonts, and is a rational choice.

PhasmaFelis 13y ago

Thank God for that, and I wish it was a universal standard. Fonts where you can't tell the difference between capital eye, lowercase ell, and numeral one are a pain in the ass. Improving legibility doesn't violate the purity of sans-serif.

eps 13y ago

Make sure then to stay clear of those slabs, slab-serifs, semi-serifs and various in-betweens. Type designers just really don't know any shame these days.

chavesn 13y ago

Although they seem to be considered serifs[1], I wouldn't call it stock-standard "mixing", since it's fairly common[2]: - Verdana (the font of this very comment: "I") - Tahoma - Officina Sans - Bell Gothic - Apple Monaco [3] - Adobe Source Code Pro [4] [1]: http://www.typophile.com/node/45715 http://www.typophile.com/node/45715 [2]: http://typophile.com/node/50393 http://typophile.com/node/50393 [3]: http://myfonts.us/td-LJbtZv http://myfonts.us/td-LJbtZv [4]: http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2012/09/source-code-pro.html http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2012/09/source-code-pro....

dghf 13y ago
> Verdana (the font of this very comment: "I") Weird. I'm seeing it in Adobe Source Sans Pro, where that "I" has no serifs.

dangayle 13y ago

This image I made back in 2009 illustrates perfectly why having limited serifs in a sans-serif typeface can increase comprehension: http://i.imgur.com/Jgj17qR.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Jgj17qR.jpg