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The New Web Typography

robinrendle.com

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Re: The New Web Typography

#31

Post by e12e »

ekianjo wrote: 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…

Nice catch, but I think you're a little too harsh. First of all, the site looks better than most other sites, with js off (I also use noscript). Secondly, one has to ask why js is disabled. The site probably looks as fine as it could in lynx or w3m. A spider can read the semantic markup fine. A screenreader while pronounce the text as well (or poorly) as is.

I think most people realize that there are certain limits to the combination of just html and css -- and that js can be used to change the trade-off between "good" and "perfect".

All that said, I also wish one could simply add a link to a font-file in the -element and be done with it. But as web fonts are an attack vector, the people that run noscript, shouldn't be able to see that webfont either -- unless they take an action to trust the publisher in question (the site/host).

Re: The New Web Typography

#32

Post by mbrock »

jeffehobbs wrote: post #11

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

I'm a little reluctant to admit that I asked myself the same question... and I've written a bunch of wanky essays myself.

I was pretty confused about the text, so I thought, I'll reread the blurb at the top to see what the author is trying to accomplish.

> We can trace a nervous path through the links and hearts that occupy our timelines. In search of answers, we’ve peeked under the covers of Material Design and examined hundreds of pattern libraries, since one of them might be secretly withholding the principles of good design within. But why are we obsessed with typographic rules? And if we were to make guidelines for setting text on the web, what form should those rules take?

What's a nervous path? What timelines, specifically? And "Material Design" isn't mentioned once in the text. What is a pattern library?

There are interesting points in the essay, but it makes it obvious that aside from New Web Typographers... we also need New Web Editors.

By the way, the author's website causes a font change flash on every navigation; you get the feeling that the web fonts aren't being cached. From the source, it looks like there's a script at the very end of the HTML that injects another script that then changes the font. Could this be done at an earlier stage in the page load to prevent the problem? Or, why not just use ordinary @font-face URLs linking directly to the .woff files?

Re: The New Web Typography

#33

Post by mbrock »

jradd wrote: post #30
fiatjaf wrote: post #2

Beautiful website.

Couldn't agree more! Also, Grimes is first mentioned under “Special Thanks.“ Does anybody know the reason? Aside from her exceptional talent as a musician.

Probably just because "Kill Vs Maim" is an awesome song that one might listen to on repeat while writing a long essay...

If I wrote credits in my commit messages, quite a few of them would have Grimes at the top.

Re: The New Web Typography

#34

Post by [deleted] »

ekianjo wrote: 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…

[deleted]

Re: The New Web Typography

#36

Post by bb101 »

jeffehobbs wrote: post #11

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

The typeface is the voice of the text. It also marries the frivolous world of design with the serious world of content, lending design the validity it craves.

Re: The New Web Typography

#37

Post by anon4 »

twblalock wrote: post #20
ekianjo wrote: 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.

And you can choose to not be an asshole and not get downvoted, but you'll just have to take what you deserve.

Re: The New Web Typography

#38

Post by killercup »

martgnz wrote: 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?

You can set unicode ranges for custom fonts [1], to e.g. only load the basic range initially.

[1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/de/docs/Web/CSS/@font-face/uni...

Re: The New Web Typography

#39

Post by digitalengineer »

mrob wrote: post #26

The most readable font is the the font you're most familiar with. Spencerian script is almost illegible to me, but for people who read it ever day it's no problem. The same is true of blackletter scripts. No matter how ugly the font, people can adapt to it, and once they've adapted they'll find it preferable. If you really care about prioritizing the text, you should leave the typography to the client. I do not care…

> you should leave the typography to the client

Who is 'you'? A back-end developer? Then, yes. A front-end developer or UX person with design background? Then: no. We don't make websites for 'the client', we make them for their clients.

Re: The New Web Typography

#40

Post by juliendorra »

digitalengineer wrote: post #39
mrob wrote: post #26

The most readable font is the the font you're most familiar with. Spencerian script is almost illegible to me, but for people who read it ever day it's no problem. The same is true of blackletter scripts. No matter how ugly the font, people can adapt to it, and once they've adapted they'll find it preferable. If you really care about prioritizing the text, you should leave the typography to the client. I do not care…

> you should leave the typography to the client Who is 'you'? A back-end developer? Then, yes. A front-end developer or UX person with design background? Then: no. We don't make websites for 'the client', we make them for their clients.

I think it meant the browser, as in "the web client". (There is a mention of overriding all websites fonts). So you basically agree on the goal: satisfying the end user.
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