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Times New Bastard

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Re: Times New Bastard

#41
post #3

I'm not sure if the serif-icity is the jarring part, I think it's the different point size (or whatever that word is for the horizontal height lines that fonts live within). I'm curious why type/font technology hasn't developed for variation in letters, where a handwriting or printing typeface (or "Ransom" :) could vary the letter "a" so all the "a"'s don't look alike, the same as happens irl.

> I'm curious why type/font technology hasn't developed for variation in letters, where a handwriting or printing typeface (or "Ransom" :) could vary the letter "a" so all the "a"'s don't look alike, the same as happens irl. Why would you want that? It seems like it would be harder to read for no benefit.

Why would you want it? For the same reason as a font like Times New Bastard. For fun. For creative depression. For no good reason at all.

Re: Times New Bastard

#42
post #3

I'm not sure if the serif-icity is the jarring part, I think it's the different point size (or whatever that word is for the horizontal height lines that fonts live within). I'm curious why type/font technology hasn't developed for variation in letters, where a handwriting or printing typeface (or "Ransom" :) could vary the letter "a" so all the "a"'s don't look alike, the same as happens irl.

> I'm curious why type/font technology hasn't developed for variation in letters, where a handwriting or printing typeface (or "Ransom" :) could vary the letter "a" so all the "a"'s don't look alike, the same as happens irl. Why would you want that? It seems like it would be harder to read for no benefit.

For a handwriting font, it would be fun to have small variations on letters. Just to make it look like something actually handwritten.

Re: Times New Bastard

#44
post #3

I'm not sure if the serif-icity is the jarring part, I think it's the different point size (or whatever that word is for the horizontal height lines that fonts live within). I'm curious why type/font technology hasn't developed for variation in letters, where a handwriting or printing typeface (or "Ransom" :) could vary the letter "a" so all the "a"'s don't look alike, the same as happens irl.

Yeah, if they were the same size I'm not sure I would even notice.

You'd notice in the original screenshot/example linked: https://bouquetoftwelve.tumblr.com/post/186272155342/ommanyt...

Re: Times New Bastard

#45
post #26
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

stylistically, my personal taste is that Comic Sans is exactly the right font to use for serious warning signs like in a kitchen, such as "DON'T TOUCH, handle gets HOT" or something. Anything official looking I have a tendency to ignore as boilerplate, but comic sans seems like a personal friendly message directed at me if any of the objection is to the precise letter drawings, ok fine, give me a different one, but t…

If you want jarring so that you don’t ignore it, use Impact or Copperplate.

I completely disagree, though, you're not getting my point. There is a type of "standard" warning that I routinely ignore, the "don't cut yourself with the tablesaw" warnings. Or "knife is sharp". Like, yeah, that's why I'm using the knife.

A warning I won't ignore is one written by a friend about something unusual or unexpected. "The supposedly insulated handle on this pot will melt your fingers off"

I just think that comic sans draws my eye in, in a way that Copperplate instructions from HR do not. Don't tell HR, or they'll start using Comic Sans.

Re: Times New Bastard

#46
post #3

I'm not sure if the serif-icity is the jarring part, I think it's the different point size (or whatever that word is for the horizontal height lines that fonts live within). I'm curious why type/font technology hasn't developed for variation in letters, where a handwriting or printing typeface (or "Ransom" :) could vary the letter "a" so all the "a"'s don't look alike, the same as happens irl.

It would've been a neater prank if they'd actually chopped off serifs from the original letters and used those for the sans glyphes.

Re: Times New Bastard

#47
post #3

I'm not sure if the serif-icity is the jarring part, I think it's the different point size (or whatever that word is for the horizontal height lines that fonts live within). I'm curious why type/font technology hasn't developed for variation in letters, where a handwriting or printing typeface (or "Ransom" :) could vary the letter "a" so all the "a"'s don't look alike, the same as happens irl.

> I'm curious why type/font technology hasn't developed for variation in letters, where a handwriting or printing typeface (or "Ransom" :) could vary the letter "a" so all the "a"'s don't look alike, the same as happens irl. Why would you want that? It seems like it would be harder to read for no benefit.

I believe it exists and here is a list of reasons for it: https://fonts.google.com/knowledge/introducing_type/introduc...

Re: Times New Bastard

#48
post #2

How does this work? I thought ligatures were just different glyphs stored in the font that would replace some number of other individual characters. Does that mean there’s a ligature glyph for every combination of 7 characters?!

There's a whole, let's say, scripting engine that lets the font decide which glyph is going to be used that goes way further than just simple ligature substitution. People have even implemented "games" as fonts this way: https://www.coderelay.io/fontemon.html

If anyone is interested I wrote a blog post about how I made fontemon and which type features I used: https://github.com/mmulet/code-relay/blob/main/markdown/HowI...

Re: Times New Bastard

#49
post #2

How does this work? I thought ligatures were just different glyphs stored in the font that would replace some number of other individual characters. Does that mean there’s a ligature glyph for every combination of 7 characters?!

There's a whole, let's say, scripting engine that lets the font decide which glyph is going to be used that goes way further than just simple ligature substitution. People have even implemented "games" as fonts this way: https://www.coderelay.io/fontemon.html

> Implementation for a seemingly simple logic is surprisingly powerful

hmm.

Re: Times New Bastard

#50
post #3

I'm not sure if the serif-icity is the jarring part, I think it's the different point size (or whatever that word is for the horizontal height lines that fonts live within). I'm curious why type/font technology hasn't developed for variation in letters, where a handwriting or printing typeface (or "Ransom" :) could vary the letter "a" so all the "a"'s don't look alike, the same as happens irl.

> I'm curious why type/font technology hasn't developed for variation in letters, where a handwriting or printing typeface (or "Ransom" :) could vary the letter "a" so all the "a"'s don't look alike, the same as happens irl. Why would you want that? It seems like it would be harder to read for no benefit.

You might want it for emulating handwriting by choosing glyphs from a series of fonts so that tokens like "IEEE" or "error" aren't uncanny giveaways of the computer-rendering.
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