Five minute guide to better typography

Post by galeforcewinds » Sat, Oct 07, 2017, 9:50 PM UTC

brianpan wrote: post #49

twhb wrote: post #34

It's a quest of mine to understand this subject mathematically. I'm convinced that typography is an exact science, it's just easier to use intuition than find the formulae that govern it. Like catching a baseball versus understanding gravity and drag. For example, when aligning that header, they're moving the leftmost pixels into alignment with the body's leftmost pixels. The correct state is well-defined, it's just…

Typography can be understood mathematically to the extent that communication can be understood mathematically. You're never going to account for style, trends, or connotation. Same with baseball, by the way. Advanced analytics can complement and enhance your understanding of baseball. But there are people involved. It will never be as straightforward as throw a curve because the count is 3 and 1 in this situation. Hu…

Post by rflrob » Sat, Oct 07, 2017, 9:58 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #60

gkya wrote: post #9

My humble appendix wrt online typography ("-" means IM-not-so-HO): - If your font colour is more thant #333 on white, you're being cruel, especially to those who suffer astigmatism. - Make sure the font colour contrasts the background for prose. - Except from "fi" and "ffi", avoid ligatures in Latin scripts. They were useful when fonts were forged in metal and typesetting was manual labour. Dots may connect to serifs…

What's a dickbar?

Post by IgorPartola » Sat, Oct 07, 2017, 10:00 PM UTC

brianpan wrote: post #49

twhb wrote: post #34

It's a quest of mine to understand this subject mathematically. I'm convinced that typography is an exact science, it's just easier to use intuition than find the formulae that govern it. Like catching a baseball versus understanding gravity and drag. For example, when aligning that header, they're moving the leftmost pixels into alignment with the body's leftmost pixels. The correct state is well-defined, it's just…

Typography can be understood mathematically to the extent that communication can be understood mathematically. You're never going to account for style, trends, or connotation. Same with baseball, by the way. Advanced analytics can complement and enhance your understanding of baseball. But there are people involved. It will never be as straightforward as throw a curve because the count is 3 and 1 in this situation. Hu…

Post by gkya » Sat, Oct 07, 2017, 10:04 PM UTC

maddyboo wrote: post #59

dragonne wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most of your advice is solid, but I take issue with one point: > - If your font colour is more thant #333 on white, you're being cruel, especially to those who suffer astigmatism. A designer should think hard before reducing contrast. You may be improving the experience for one group at the expense of others: - A low contrast page is difficult to read on a cell phone in daylight. - A low contrast page is diff…

I read the OP's comment to argue _for_ increased contrast, not against it. Though it isn't fully clear exactly what "more than #333 on white" means.

Post by jsjohnst » Sat, Oct 07, 2017, 10:37 PM UTC

mixmastamyk wrote: post #33

Z1515M8147 wrote: post #11

I have persistently encountered the same problem in this space. Most people I've worked with write documents using the last formatted document they made as a template for the next. Tracing back through their history of documents you find that they are all based off one person who decided it was a good idea to mix fonts and colours of headings, and mess around with font sizes and then save it all as default heading an…

Latex is too hard for mortals, but I’d suggest Sphinx or one of the markdown alternatives. I think atlassian confluence is another even friendlier alternative, with a price tag.