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The New Web Typography

robinrendle.com

11–20 of 67 posts

Re: The New Web Typography

#13

What is it about fonts/typography that engenders such wankery? I say this with love.

You can say that about anything really. You may not really get the fascination behind type, a type designer may not understand the fascination behind node.js or zfs, an embedded systems programmer may not understand my love for high gsm paper, etc.

Additionally it's a very self aware sort of wankery in my experience :)

Re: The New Web Typography

#14
Anybody else getting a 'Forbidden' error?

Tried some isitdown services, they told me the site returns 200... I'm getting a 403 response.

First it was cloudflare with their captchas because I'm lucky enough to be born in Eastern Europe, now individuals put blacklists?

Re: The New Web Typography

#15
post #14

Anybody else getting a 'Forbidden' error? Tried some isitdown services, they told me the site returns 200... I'm getting a 403 response. First it was cloudflare with their captchas because I'm lucky enough to be born in Eastern Europe, now individuals put blacklists?

Web typography is a Forbidden Art. Mere mortals are not allowed to gaze into the profane heart of CSS.

(I can't access it either, from the US. Site seems to have collapsed under the traffic from HN.)

Re: The New Web Typography

#16

What is it about fonts/typography that engenders such wankery? I say this with love.

Compared to what? People talking about their favorite programming editors? Discussions of brace style? Functional vs OO vs ... programming?

Re: The New Web Typography

#17
post #4

At the moment I'm using loadCSS ( https://github.com/filamentgroup/loadCSS ) to render local fonts on my projects. I wonder how difficult would be to create a subset of the font to load first, and then switch it for the full family once the site is loaded (as the article suggests). What is the best font-loading strategy today?

>What is the best font-loading strategy today?

As a website visitor, I'd prefer sites stuck with the bloody built-in fonts. Can be get some kind of project to increase the standard, cross-platform fonts available in all platforms/browsers to 30-50 from the ~10 that they are now?

Re: The New Web Typography

#18
> We can learn more about prioritising the text in this way by diving deeper into the murky waters of web font loading: in my walkthrough on the subject I mentioned two of the most popular techniques.

His techniques uses javascript, which goes completely behind the earlier point he is making about "typography is as strong as your weakest link". If I have Noscript on, I can't see your text correctly. That's your weakest link right there.

Re: The New Web Typography

#19
post #17
post #4

At the moment I'm using loadCSS ( https://github.com/filamentgroup/loadCSS ) to render local fonts on my projects. I wonder how difficult would be to create a subset of the font to load first, and then switch it for the full family once the site is loaded (as the article suggests). What is the best font-loading strategy today?

> What is the best font-loading strategy today? As a website visitor, I'd prefer sites stuck with the bloody built-in fonts. Can be get some kind of project to increase the standard, cross-platform fonts available in all platforms/browsers to 30-50 from the ~10 that they are now?

I use the extension Stylish on Chromium to change all the fonts on all websites. I don't have that computer with me, but it's something like:

* { font-family: "Myriad Pro" !important; } code, pre {font-family: "Inconsolata" !important; }

I do this because the fonts on my Linux box either render strangely or are downright ugly, especially ones loaded from some other website (I consider myself a designer before a UNIX geek).

You can do this natively on Firefox though, and Firefox is much better at it. With Firefox on OS X I use either Charter or Iowan Old Style for serif, Adelle Sans for sans-serif, and Monaco for monospace.

Re: The New Web Typography

#20
post #18

> We can learn more about prioritising the text in this way by diving deeper into the murky waters of web font loading: in my walkthrough on the subject I mentioned two of the most popular techniques. His techniques uses javascript, which goes completely behind the earlier point he is making about "typography is as strong as your weakest link". If I have Noscript on, I can't see your text correctly. That's your weake…

If you choose to disable one of the core technologies of the modern web, you'll just have to take what you can get.
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