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Typography on the iPad

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Re: Typography on the iPad

#11

Post by rimantas »

acg wrote: post #4

Reminds me of the Stanford address where Jobs claims that computers may not have had typography if he'd not done a calligraphy course. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc I'm sure the Parc guys that founded Adobe would beg to differ.

  I'm sure the Parc guys that founded Adobe would beg to
  differ.
Maybe, but I am not sure how much. I'd say Apple played a major role in Adobe becoming Adobe. It was Jobs who persuaded them to change initial plan to build the whole package: computer + printer, and focus on software which Apple needed for LaserWriter.

  "Steve did a prepayment on royalties to make sure
  we had the resources to stay in business, and Apple
  also bought a little less than 20 percent of the
  company, which quintupled the value of the original
  investors' money. Steve wanted to make sure that we
  finish this product, because it was critical for him
  to have the LaserWriter"

  "Fortunately, there was a young marketing guy at Apple
  named John Scull, who aware of what was going on (as
  were we) at Aldus up in Seattle, because PageMaker come
  out at the same time as the LaserWriter did. He came up
  with the idea of getting the three companies—Apple, Aldus
  and Adobe—together to put together a marketing campaign called
  "desktop publishing".
Source: Interview with Charles Geschke, cofounder of Adobe Systems in "Founders at work".

Re: Typography on the iPad

#12

Post by glymor »

KirinDave wrote: post #8
moe wrote: post #7

It still baffles me that people want to read books on the iPad in first place. Reading on a backlit screen is well known to tire your eyes very quickly, due to the low resolution and (afaik) because the eyes' Rhodopsin depletes faster while staring into a light source. I have heard people arguing that we spend half our days in front of a computer-screen anyways, but that is a different kind of usage. During computer…

Sir, I heartily recommend that you avoid making biological claims that you clearly understand only dimly. In any event, I have read numerous books and publications on my led backlit monitor for my laptop and not experienced significant eyestrain. The amount of eyestrain I feel is roughly analogous to reading in similar environments. Modern display technology has come a long way from the days of CRTs. I think this com…

The question is how big a hit on reading speed. It's possible to read on anything so that's not a useful criterion.

Personally e-ink is only a small difference off paperback and faster than a hard back. My last LCD was about an hour longer for a book but it had a smaller screen (and the big problem wrt the LCD was a backlight turning off).

Realistically it's things like: how do you turn a page; can you do it with either hand; is it easy to hold. That make more difference.

Re: Typography on the iPad

#13

Post by thingie »

acg wrote: post #9
asolove wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

Reading the text is made difficult by the spacing used. The paragraph headings for instance just look like bold text and could be spaced better to allow them to be found in the page. The ragged right edge is too ragged and makes the text difficult to read.

If it wasn't ragged, it would most likely look even worse than that Pooh example in the article. It depends on the size of font, which you can't (on the web) control. And he is right, justified paragraphs without hyphenation are ugly, unless you have a lot of characters on a line. Which he has not (around the images especially), and the example is even worse. I wouldn't even think of displaying justified paragraphs for lines shorter than, say… 80 characters or with hyphenations [1]. But even printed newspapers give up justification in narrow columns and has ragged right.

[1] I think that you could make it in javascript. With too few characters on a line, display paragraphs ragged, with more, justified. Maybe someone already did it.

Re: Typography on the iPad

#14

Post by mhd »

KirinDave wrote: post #8
moe wrote: post #7

It still baffles me that people want to read books on the iPad in first place. Reading on a backlit screen is well known to tire your eyes very quickly, due to the low resolution and (afaik) because the eyes' Rhodopsin depletes faster while staring into a light source. I have heard people arguing that we spend half our days in front of a computer-screen anyways, but that is a different kind of usage. During computer…

Sir, I heartily recommend that you avoid making biological claims that you clearly understand only dimly. In any event, I have read numerous books and publications on my led backlit monitor for my laptop and not experienced significant eyestrain. The amount of eyestrain I feel is roughly analogous to reading in similar environments. Modern display technology has come a long way from the days of CRTs. I think this com…

While I agree with the general statement that it isn't that easy, just providing anecdotal evidence doesn't really help a lot.

The problem with all that is that there are a multitudes of factor in play. Contrast, type size, surrounding light, age of the reader, frequency of breaks... A college student reading his textbook on his iPad or Laptop in a well-lit university is different from an insomniac septuagenarian reading "Eat, Pray, Love" in bed, with the light set low to avoid waking hubby.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/do-e-readers-cause-...

Re: Typography on the iPad

#16

Post by KirinDave »

mhd wrote: post #14
KirinDave wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sir, I heartily recommend that you avoid making biological claims that you clearly understand only dimly. In any event, I have read numerous books and publications on my led backlit monitor for my laptop and not experienced significant eyestrain. The amount of eyestrain I feel is roughly analogous to reading in similar environments. Modern display technology has come a long way from the days of CRTs. I think this com…

While I agree with the general statement that it isn't that easy, just providing anecdotal evidence doesn't really help a lot. The problem with all that is that there are a multitudes of factor in play. Contrast, type size, surrounding light, age of the reader, frequency of breaks... A college student reading his textbook on his iPad or Laptop in a well-lit university is different from an insomniac septuagenarian rea…

From your article: “First of all: doctors say that reading on a screen won’t cause any harm.”

I feel like the post originating this discussion was somewhat alarmist. It's definitely true that some conditions that ereaders (of varying types) present can cause fatigue faster than reading a printed page in a well-lit room.

And please don't take my statements as proof, because I'm not offering anything besides the null hypothesis: reading is reading and there isn't any special magic to screen reading that makes it an eyeblaster.

Re: Typography on the iPad

#17

Post by scott_s »

acg wrote: post #9
asolove wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

Reading the text is made difficult by the spacing used. The paragraph headings for instance just look like bold text and could be spaced better to allow them to be found in the page. The ragged right edge is too ragged and makes the text difficult to read.

Web browsers do text justification horribly. Beyond not hyphenating words, they also don't change the spacing inside the word. (I want to say this is kerning, but I can't determine if that applies to adjustable space, or only to the static space.) Until web browser can handle that, there's no reason to justify text on a webpage.

Re: Typography on the iPad

#18

Post by ugh »

moe wrote: post #7

It still baffles me that people want to read books on the iPad in first place. Reading on a backlit screen is well known to tire your eyes very quickly, due to the low resolution and (afaik) because the eyes' Rhodopsin depletes faster while staring into a light source. I have heard people arguing that we spend half our days in front of a computer-screen anyways, but that is a different kind of usage. During computer…

I read GEB on a LC display. Sure, there are trade offs — I think my reading speed is noticably slower — but my eyes just refuse to strain. I would take the advantage of having all my books in digital form over dead wood books any time. This is just a anecdote but I think there is a lesson here: the digital book reading experience doesn't have to be on par with old books in every way to win out. Being a bit worse in one respect might no matter in the long run.

Re: Typography on the iPad

#19

Post by acg »

thingie wrote: post #13
acg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the text is made difficult by the spacing used. The paragraph headings for instance just look like bold text and could be spaced better to allow them to be found in the page. The ragged right edge is too ragged and makes the text difficult to read.

If it wasn't ragged, it would most likely look even worse than that Pooh example in the article. It depends on the size of font, which you can't (on the web) control. And he is right, justified paragraphs without hyphenation are ugly, unless you have a lot of characters on a line. Which he has not (around the images especially), and the example is even worse. I wouldn't even think of displaying justified paragraphs f…

Too ragged was the criticism, which is different from not ragged. There is enough control in CSS to make it look better, and many people do.

Re: Typography on the iPad

#20

Post by mkinsella »

Typography has always been a bit of a black art for me. In the end, I usually just settle on something that (I think) doesn't look terrible. Anyone have some basic and intermediate tutorials/guides, sites, and book recommendations?
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