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Almost monospaced: the perfect fonts for writing

blakewatson.com

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Re: Almost monospaced: the perfect fonts for writing

#11

Post by raydiatian »

blakewatson wrote: post #3
raydiatian wrote: post #2

> Almost monospaced: the perfect fonts for writing The article doesn’t use the font it is extolling the virtues of, except for illustration. I found that interesting. Also, there is something that gets under my skin about using anything other than monospaced to write code, as was one of the demo’s. I would genuinely be fine with writing code in a monospaced Arial or Times, but even courier-semispaced makes me shiver…

> The article doesn’t use the font it is extolling the virtues of, except for illustration. I found that interesting. I do use them for writing and coding.

Don’t misread what I am saying: I am not judging you for finding something that works for you, or attacking you for sharing.

I’m bummed out to see an article about “a perfect font”, especially being a monospaced one (or nearly), but that does not use said font throughout. I was sort of hoping to be immersed in this font for awhile, but wasn’t.

I use fira+ligatures. I am a monospacer too.

Re: Almost monospaced: the perfect fonts for writing

#12

Post by DavidAdams »

raydiatian wrote: post #11
blakewatson wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The article doesn’t use the font it is extolling the virtues of, except for illustration. I found that interesting. I do use them for writing and coding.

Don’t misread what I am saying: I am not judging you for finding something that works for you, or attacking you for sharing. I’m bummed out to see an article about “a perfect font”, especially being a monospaced one (or nearly), but that does not use said font throughout. I was sort of hoping to be immersed in this font for awhile, but wasn’t. I use fira+ligatures. I am a monospacer too.

I think the point of the article is that monospaced fonts, or near-monospaced, are good for production (writing), though arguably proportional fonts are better for consumption (reading).

Re: Almost monospaced: the perfect fonts for writing

#13

Post by DenisM »

tooltower wrote: post #10

Another reason for using almost monospace: international languages. Many indic languages simply don't have good monospace fonts. It's not easy to design. They stick out in code, as a result. But I've always wondered if allowing three or four different widths would help. We could still align text if (narrow) spaces were the smallest unit, and other widths were repeated multiples of that. This makes me think it's doabl…

Neat idea. This would probably vindicate the “tabs” people of the tabs/spaces debate.

Re: Almost monospaced: the perfect fonts for writing

#16

Post by systemvoltage »

I am not convinced. They should just finish the fitting/kerning. Seems like a fad more than anything else.

In the screenshot, if you were to see a properly fitted proportional version of iA Quattro, you'd ditch iA Quattro. But that comparison is not presented, I don't think they've tried making a proportional version of it.

Re: Almost monospaced: the perfect fonts for writing

#18

Post by blakewatson »

DavidAdams wrote: post #12
raydiatian wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t misread what I am saying: I am not judging you for finding something that works for you, or attacking you for sharing. I’m bummed out to see an article about “a perfect font”, especially being a monospaced one (or nearly), but that does not use said font throughout. I was sort of hoping to be immersed in this font for awhile, but wasn’t. I use fira+ligatures. I am a monospacer too.

I think the point of the article is that monospaced fonts, or near-monospaced, are good for production (writing), though arguably proportional fonts are better for consumption (reading).

Yeah this is my anecdotal take. Haven’t looked at studies on this, if they exist, but in my experience, reading monospaced fonts for several paragraphs is tiring.

Re: Almost monospaced: the perfect fonts for writing

#19

Post by Ezku »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #4

> iA Writer The typeface is a modification of IBM Plex Mono[0][1]. I'd recognise that 'a' glyph anywhere . [0]: https://github.com/IBM/plex [1]: https://www.ibm.com/plex/

Well spotted!

> This is a modification of IBM's Plex font.

https://github.com/iaolo/iA-Fonts/tree/master/iA%20Writer%20...

Re: Almost monospaced: the perfect fonts for writing

#20

Post by blakewatson »

systemvoltage wrote: post #16

I am not convinced. They should just finish the fitting/kerning. Seems like a fad more than anything else. In the screenshot, if you were to see a properly fitted proportional version of iA Quattro, you'd ditch iA Quattro. But that comparison is not presented, I don't think they've tried making a proportional version of it.

That’s a good point. Something close to a "properly fitted proportional version of iA Quattro" might be Nitti Grotesk. https://www.boldmonday.com/typeface/nitti-grotesk/
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