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The New Web Typography

robinrendle.com

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Re: The New Web Typography

#41

Post by mrob »

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.

The client is the person paying for the website. They want fancy fonts because they want a strong brand and all that bullshit. The client's client is the person reading the website. Fancy design is actively harmful to them.

I make my "should" claim as somebody reading websites, not somebody paying for website design. I'm fully aware that designers are less likely to listen to me than to the client who's paying them, but if I can at least shame a few into reining in their worst excesses I've done some good.

Re: The New Web Typography

#42

Post by mrob »

juliendorra wrote: post #40
digitalengineer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. I was thinking of technical details not business details. I would edit my post but it is too old to edit now. Thanks for pointing this out.

Re: The New Web Typography

#43

Post by digitalengineer »

juliendorra wrote: post #40
digitalengineer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Thank you! We agree. This is a slide from my UX or Marketing presentation. I think you'll like it: http://imgur.com/ErR8JfJ

Re: The New Web Typography

#44

Post by Tiksi »

x0 wrote: post #19
coldtea wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>the fonts on my Linux box either render strangely or are downright ugly

Out of curiosity, which distro are you using? It sounds like there are missing fonts and your system is falling back to some really bad fonts in their place. The fix may be just installing a couple packages with more fonts.

Re: The New Web Typography

#45

Post by DasIch »

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…

There are very few people who are able to make informed choices about typography to create a site that's most readable to them. You might be able to do that but you're the exception and not the rule.

Re: The New Web Typography

#46

Post by rmetzler »

DasIch wrote: post #45
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…

There are very few people who are able to make informed choices about typography to create a site that's most readable to them. You might be able to do that but you're the exception and not the rule.

The very same link above is so much easier to read in Safari's "Reader" mode than in it's original "fancy webtypographer" design, that I wonder if the typographer actually understand what he does.

Re: The New Web Typography

#47

Post by bigbugbag »

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…

Are you saying that CSS should drop the author mode[1] for typography because you override it ? How does that make any sense ? The point of user mode in CSS is exactly to allow the user to put her own css into the mix.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/cascade.html#cascade

Re: The New Web Typography

#48

Post by mrob »

DasIch wrote: post #45
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…

There are very few people who are able to make informed choices about typography to create a site that's most readable to them. You might be able to do that but you're the exception and not the rule.

In Firefox it's as simple as going to Edit, Preferences, Content, Fonts & Colors, Advanced..., and disabling "Allow pages to choose their own fonts". Whoever was responsible for setting up fonts in your OS already picked sane defaults so there's no need to change anything else there.

Re: The New Web Typography

#49

Post by DasIch »

rmetzler wrote: post #46
DasIch wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are very few people who are able to make informed choices about typography to create a site that's most readable to them. You might be able to do that but you're the exception and not the rule.

The very same link above is so much easier to read in Safari's "Reader" mode than in it's original "fancy webtypographer" design, that I wonder if the typographer actually understand what he does.

It's easier to read but it also has an aesthetic that reminds me of the children's books I used to learn to read with in primary school.

Comparing the text as-is and in reader mode, you see that the font the author choose is bolder (for lack of a fancy typography term) and the space between the letters seems to be smaller.

If you increase the space between the letters with CSS using the letter-spacing property just a little bit, I think it's just as easy to read as in reader mode.

Re: The New Web Typography

#50

Post by DasIch »

mrob wrote: post #48
DasIch wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are very few people who are able to make informed choices about typography to create a site that's most readable to them. You might be able to do that but you're the exception and not the rule.

In Firefox it's as simple as going to Edit, Preferences, Content, Fonts & Colors, Advanced..., and disabling "Allow pages to choose their own fonts". Whoever was responsible for setting up fonts in your OS already picked sane defaults so there's no need to change anything else there.

Most people are happy they can barely use their browser and have probably never seen any of these menus. They won't even think about opening the Preferences window to look around and they definitely won't consider that they could configure the fonts used by websites.
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