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Choosing the perfect typeface

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Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#11

Post by adwf »

anandgrafiti wrote: post #9
adwf wrote: post #7

Interesting read, but I still think that people spend faaaaaaaar too much time thinking about typefaces. I just don't think they make as much of an impact on the page as people think they do. At first glance, I thought the "elite" and "subtle" were both the same face, and likewise with the "informal"/"playful". It's only because they were blown up to a large size that I actually started noticing a tiny difference. Ma…

Thanks for the comments. But the web and the resolutions are changing. The web is the new Print. Take a look at projects like Medium or Flipboard... they all strikes you as impressive not just because of the beautiful layouts but with the intelligent choice of typefaces. Try turning off the webfonts on Medium and see if the impact remain the same? The general design trend moves towards bigger fonts and lavish use of…

Yes very good point. Particularly with tablets, the use-case they are frequently replacing is that of an old-fashioned print magazine.

I did just test turning off webfonts on Medium and I still honestly can't see any huge problem with my default system typeface. This could possibly be because I have nice defaults, but at the same time, I think the good readability of Medium is far more about the overall style/layout of the page (particularly the decent large font-size), than about any particular typeface.

Example 1 - normal Medium: http://i.imgur.com/D4hYBPy.png

Example 2 - default system fonts: http://i.imgur.com/Jvnuhkm.png

Whilst I can see the difference in typeface, I can't honestly say that I'm experiencing any huge readability changes. Perhaps if I were to switch to a Sans of some sort, but that's not exactly a huge decision that needs to take a lot of time and fuss. By far and away the most important thing that makes this page readable and nice is the font size, closely followed by the line-width.

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#12

Post by ChikkaChiChi »

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 their layout.

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#13

Post by eps »

anandgrafiti wrote: post #4
digitalengineer wrote: post #3

Nice read, but I'm left with some questions. Thisis a website where one can find recepies and read those with the instructions while you're cooking if I'm correct. If so, I'd love to hear if the author actually studied some users in their kitchen while cooking a new recipe and using these new fonts.

We did. Infact the specimen sheets were tested with random users in their cooking environment and the reading patterns were analysed. We noticed that line heights needs to be liberal and open counter letter forms fare better in such scenarios. Again, these are pure observation based conclusions and the same fonts when tested with improved type settings have been reviewed well by the users.

How big was your sampling group?

Because what you wrote is exactly what I would've written based on common typographical sense and after sticking an iPad under my wife's nose a couple of times while she was cooking. In other words what you wrote looks made up.

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#14

Post by anandgrafiti »

eps wrote: post #13
anandgrafiti wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did. Infact the specimen sheets were tested with random users in their cooking environment and the reading patterns were analysed. We noticed that line heights needs to be liberal and open counter letter forms fare better in such scenarios. Again, these are pure observation based conclusions and the same fonts when tested with improved type settings have been reviewed well by the users.

How big was your sampling group? Because what you wrote is exactly what I would've written based on common typographical sense and after sticking an iPad under my wife's nose a couple of times while she was cooking. In other words what you wrote looks made up.

Ofcource i cant claim that the sampling group was big enough for us to make a generic judgement. But for the record, we had 10 users testing it in realtime cooking environments and several others we follow closely at our curated community at facebook. What you claim as common typographic sense is not common to everyone, even in the world of design. People follow patterns and those patterns may or may not work for you in your projects. Assumptions are one thing, but validation is another. In a world where everything needs a reasoning, some process is required for answering questions like why this or why not that..

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#15

Post by anandgrafiti »

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…

Precisely the reason for attempting to chronicle the journey. Thanks for your interest. Its not very common to come across documentation of subtle aspects of design decisions like type choices.

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#16

Post by anandgrafiti »

adwf wrote: post #11
anandgrafiti wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the comments. But the web and the resolutions are changing. The web is the new Print. Take a look at projects like Medium or Flipboard... they all strikes you as impressive not just because of the beautiful layouts but with the intelligent choice of typefaces. Try turning off the webfonts on Medium and see if the impact remain the same? The general design trend moves towards bigger fonts and lavish use of…

Yes very good point. Particularly with tablets, the use-case they are frequently replacing is that of an old-fashioned print magazine. I did just test turning off webfonts on Medium and I still honestly can't see any huge problem with my default system typeface. This could possibly be because I have nice defaults, but at the same time, I think the good readability of Medium is far more about the overall style/layout…

Good typography is often invisible. I clearly feel far more elegance with the original typefaces:) Its a subtle thing, something that cannot be quantified. Ofcource, content is the king, but in a world where everyone can create good content, how well will you present your content will be key.

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#17

Post by anandgrafiti »

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…

True, you should not think of your redesign/design thinking about type. That will be a disaster. But somewhere along the way you need to start looking into the options available and the personality you want to deliver though your designs.

Psst! I never get people's hatred for comic sans..its a typeface designed for a purpose. Now its not anyones mistake that Microsoft started packaging it with the OS and the HR departments of the corporate world thought of it as cool to use to be friendly in communication:P

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#18

Post by mmorris »

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…

Font selection is definitely more of an art than a science, and because of this trying to apply the theory of font selection to actual practice is difficult!

Here is a Smashing Mag article that might be helpful: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/12/14/what-font-should-...

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#19

Post by kevgnulldev »

anandgrafiti wrote: post #16
adwf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes very good point. Particularly with tablets, the use-case they are frequently replacing is that of an old-fashioned print magazine. I did just test turning off webfonts on Medium and I still honestly can't see any huge problem with my default system typeface. This could possibly be because I have nice defaults, but at the same time, I think the good readability of Medium is far more about the overall style/layout…

Good typography is often invisible. I clearly feel far more elegance with the original typefaces:) Its a subtle thing, something that cannot be quantified. Ofcource, content is the king, but in a world where everyone can create good content, how well will you present your content will be key.

I completely agree. A solid typeface evaporates between the page and the retina. Its shapes ease reading and allow the reader's vision to soften around the text and concentrate on the signal rather than the delivery modality. This is especially clear in mathematical typesetting and no discussion of type on a site with hacker in the name would be complete without a nod to the godfather (Donald Knuth) of both digital type and typography (both micro and macro see:

http://books.google.com/books/about/The_elements_of_typograp...

for a discussion of LOD in typography from a master designer)

To properly design his multi-volume set of CS/mathematics books:

http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/taocp.html

Knuth developed an entire software toolchain that spans type face creation (metafont) to the document layout programming language TeX (yup, it's an actual Turing complete language!):

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=67555

He is also responsible for the creation of "literate programming"... All this in his spare time, of course, while he wasn't occupied with his responsibilities as a CS professor at Stanford, teaching, doing research (on things other than digital typography, e.g. the content of his books, combinatorics, etc. (...). Truly an inspiration!

Re: Choosing the perfect typeface

#20

Post by L_Rahman »

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://practicaltypography.com/

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