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Choosing the perfect typeface

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Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#21

Post by ulisesrmzroche »

musicalentropy wrote: post #10

Very interesting read ! Thanks a lot. Right now, I'm trying to learn a few things about webdesign, and I have spent some time on typography yet. However, I know a few basics now, a few things about typography history, but I have never been able to find tutorials about the "why should I use this typeface or this other one there". It's like everybody is able to speak about typography theory but not about practice and t…

The eye is a creature of habit. Bad typography helps people read your copy, while bad typography prevents them from doing so. This is it.

Here's a good example. Why are headlines in all caps hard to read? Because they have no ascenders or descenders to help you read words and thus you have to read the headline letter by letter. You should never superimpose your headline on an image because that makes it hard to read.

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#22

Post by illicium »

ChikkaChiChi wrote: post #12

Typefaces are meaningless. Now that I have your attention I'll blow your mind: A good typeface on a bad site does nothing but polish the turd. Designers that obsess over typefaces also generally give equal care to spacing and layout that when all put together makes for a great site. Flipboard would never have chosen Comic Sans as a font and people that pushed Helvetica Neue would never use dancing chipmunk gifs in th…

What you're really saying is that typefaces are not meaningless, but using the right one for the job is simply part of good visual design.

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#24

Post by teraflop »

ryandrake wrote: post #23

Why can't you just A/B test 50 different typefaces and measure which one best produces the user behavior that you're after? Take the subjectivity out of it.

A/B testing is great when the value you're trying to optimize can be easily measured, such as short-term conversion rate. If your goal is "users should think the site is aesthetically pleasing", that's going to be a hard one to monitor.

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#25

Post by ryandrake »

teraflop wrote: post #24
ryandrake wrote: post #23

Why can't you just A/B test 50 different typefaces and measure which one best produces the user behavior that you're after? Take the subjectivity out of it.

A/B testing is great when the value you're trying to optimize can be easily measured, such as short-term conversion rate. If your goal is "users should think the site is aesthetically pleasing", that's going to be a hard one to monitor.

But if you're running a business, that's not necessarily going to be your end goal. You want users to "think the site is aesthetically pleasing" because those pleased users [convert more / are more engaged / view more ads], whatever your key metric is. And those are typically easy to measure.

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#26

Post by anandgrafiti »

ryandrake wrote: post #25
teraflop wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A/B testing is great when the value you're trying to optimize can be easily measured, such as short-term conversion rate. If your goal is "users should think the site is aesthetically pleasing", that's going to be a hard one to monitor.

But if you're running a business, that's not necessarily going to be your end goal. You want users to "think the site is aesthetically pleasing" because those pleased users [convert more / are more engaged / view more ads], whatever your key metric is. And those are typically easy to measure.

There are far more variables here to measure. First of all what constitutes that fifty you are thinking of rolling out? Lets say you arrive at it and what's next? For an engaged user the AB testing can measure up as you can define clear set of tasks and desired outcomes. But as i stated above, good type often goes invisible. People engage with the content and the not the,medium to tell you anything tangible. One cannot take away the subjectivity from the process when there is not anything tangible to measure.

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#27

Post by wtracy »

ryandrake wrote: post #23

Why can't you just A/B test 50 different typefaces and measure which one best produces the user behavior that you're after? Take the subjectivity out of it.

You're going to need a massive amount of traffic to get statistically significant results from 50 different choices.

I do like the idea of using A/B testing to double-check your designer's decisions, though.

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#28

Post by Kronopath »

L_Rahman wrote: post #20
musicalentropy wrote: post #10

Very interesting read ! Thanks a lot. Right now, I'm trying to learn a few things about webdesign, and I have spent some time on typography yet. However, I know a few basics now, a few things about typography history, but I have never been able to find tutorials about the "why should I use this typeface or this other one there". It's like everybody is able to speak about typography theory but not about practice and t…

My personal favorite is Mike Butterick's Practical Typography. He's a programmer, typographer, and lawyer and the book is entirely web based. They're static pages generated by code he wrote in Racket, a language in the Lisp family. For a quick introduction check out a small section of the book: Typography in Ten Minutes http://practicaltypography.com/typography-in-ten-minutes.htm... The book in full: http://practical…

+1 vote for Practical Typography. It's simple and straightforward, and it's oriented toward the average person rather than professional designers. And since it's available in full on the web, you don't have to pay anything to start reading it.

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#30

Post by generj »

L_Rahman wrote: post #20
musicalentropy wrote: post #10

Very interesting read ! Thanks a lot. Right now, I'm trying to learn a few things about webdesign, and I have spent some time on typography yet. However, I know a few basics now, a few things about typography history, but I have never been able to find tutorials about the "why should I use this typeface or this other one there". It's like everybody is able to speak about typography theory but not about practice and t…

My personal favorite is Mike Butterick's Practical Typography. He's a programmer, typographer, and lawyer and the book is entirely web based. They're static pages generated by code he wrote in Racket, a language in the Lisp family. For a quick introduction check out a small section of the book: Typography in Ten Minutes http://practicaltypography.com/typography-in-ten-minutes.htm... The book in full: http://practical…

Practical Typography is excellent. Excellent. I think he makes some hyperbolic statements at times, but Butterick as a whole is very accessible.

The only annoyance was ignoring Butterick's plugs for his personal typefaces.

I was very happy to buy a copy of his typography for lawyers book for a friend as recompense for this resource.

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