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Golden Ratio for Readable Web Typography

pearsonified.com

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Re: Golden Ratio for Readable Web Typography

#21

Post by pearsonified »

mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #6
ghurlman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lowercase phi (φ) is the accepted standard denotation for the golden ratio.

ok, but how do we know that the golden ratio is the optimal ratio for lines of text?

We don't know what's universally optimal, but we can test different ratios/mathematical bases and see what the results look like.

To my eye, Golden Ratio Typography seems to hit the sweet spot.

In a future article, I'm going to talk about the notions of a "sweet spot" and a "good eye for design" and show how these concepts point to the existence of universal subjective preferences.

Re: Golden Ratio for Readable Web Typography

#22

Post by extension »

pearsonified wrote: post #20
celoyd wrote: post #10

I love the golden ratio. It has many applications in design. In fact, right now I’m writing a blog post about using it to cheaply generate non-repeating sequences of distinct colors.[0] And I have some background in typography; I’m conversant with things like Tschichold’s golden section. But this is ridiculous. It’s making very broad claims without evidence. If it cited studies or provided compelling side-by-side com…

Everyone seems to be taking this article as gospel, but that is not the intent at all. It is an exploration into the idea of basing typographical proportions on the golden ratio; it is NOT saying that the results are the only (or even the best!) way to set type. Personally, I found the results to be compelling—paragraphs set with the Golden Ratio Typography Calculator look good to my eye (and in fact, trying to under…

You are making a lot of bold claims about subconscious programming and mathematical symphonies and beautiful blueprints provided by nature that can be seen in art and architecture throughout history. This sounds a lot closer to gospel than incidental recommendations.

Replacing arbitrary numbers with arbitrary formulae doesn't make the whole thing much less arbitrary.

Re: Golden Ratio for Readable Web Typography

#23

Post by yesbabyyes »

54mf wrote: post #16
dmerfield wrote: post #15

It's difficult to trust an article on typography whose first paragraph ends with an orphan.

Short of rewriting the copy (which they could have done, of course), dealing with orphans on the web is kind of impossible. It's a valid point, but I wouldn't let that stop you from taking the rest of the article at face value.

[...] dealing with orphans on the web is kind of impossible.

Not at all! Just:

  html.replace(/\s+(\S+)$/mg, " $1")
EDIT: Bugfix, don't replace whitespace without any characters after, replace all occurrences in a multi-line text

Re: Golden Ratio for Readable Web Typography

#24

Post by pearsonified »

extension wrote: post #22
pearsonified wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone seems to be taking this article as gospel, but that is not the intent at all. It is an exploration into the idea of basing typographical proportions on the golden ratio; it is NOT saying that the results are the only (or even the best!) way to set type. Personally, I found the results to be compelling—paragraphs set with the Golden Ratio Typography Calculator look good to my eye (and in fact, trying to under…

You are making a lot of bold claims about subconscious programming and mathematical symphonies and beautiful blueprints provided by nature that can be seen in art and architecture throughout history. This sounds a lot closer to gospel than incidental recommendations. Replacing arbitrary numbers with arbitrary formulae doesn't make the whole thing much less arbitrary.

Fantastic! I certainly don't want anyone to think this is "incidental," because who the hell gets excited over that?

I'm excited about this research and especially about the idea of understanding typography through mathematics.

As far as "arbitrary formulae" are concerned, Golden Ratio Typography does take one giant leap past the arbitrary selection of line heights and/or line widths:

The font size, line height, and line width are all constrained and related to one another mathematically. This relationship ties the three dimensions together in a way that arbitrarily selected values for these dimensions cannot.

Re: Golden Ratio for Readable Web Typography

#25

Post by [deleted] »

pearsonified wrote: post #24
extension wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making a lot of bold claims about subconscious programming and mathematical symphonies and beautiful blueprints provided by nature that can be seen in art and architecture throughout history. This sounds a lot closer to gospel than incidental recommendations. Replacing arbitrary numbers with arbitrary formulae doesn't make the whole thing much less arbitrary.

Fantastic! I certainly don't want anyone to think this is "incidental," because who the hell gets excited over that? I'm excited about this research and especially about the idea of understanding typography through mathematics. As far as "arbitrary formulae" are concerned, Golden Ratio Typography does take one giant leap past the arbitrary selection of line heights and/or line widths: The font size, line height, and…

[deleted]

Re: Golden Ratio for Readable Web Typography

#26

Post by extension »

pearsonified wrote: post #24
extension wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making a lot of bold claims about subconscious programming and mathematical symphonies and beautiful blueprints provided by nature that can be seen in art and architecture throughout history. This sounds a lot closer to gospel than incidental recommendations. Replacing arbitrary numbers with arbitrary formulae doesn't make the whole thing much less arbitrary.

Fantastic! I certainly don't want anyone to think this is "incidental," because who the hell gets excited over that? I'm excited about this research and especially about the idea of understanding typography through mathematics. As far as "arbitrary formulae" are concerned, Golden Ratio Typography does take one giant leap past the arbitrary selection of line heights and/or line widths: The font size, line height, and…

Just tying things together is not, per se, a good thing. I can decide that what I eat for lunch has to start with the same letter of the alphabet as my breakfast, but that is not automatically going to make them tastier or healthier.

Re: Golden Ratio for Readable Web Typography

#27

Post by AnthonBerg »

The lines are a little too narrow for the other parameters selected. But of course, any design guideline needs adjustment and human input, there are simply too many factors overall. Use method to create raw design, then refine.

This golden-ratio based heuristic is a good way to automatically come up with an initial model, and is therefore useful.

Re: Golden Ratio for Readable Web Typography

#28

Post by 54mf »

yesbabyyes wrote: post #23
54mf wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short of rewriting the copy (which they could have done, of course), dealing with orphans on the web is kind of impossible. It's a valid point, but I wouldn't let that stop you from taking the rest of the article at face value.

[...] dealing with orphans on the web is kind of impossible. Not at all! Just: html.replace(/\s+(\S+)$/mg, " $1") EDIT: Bugfix, don't replace whitespace without any characters after, replace all occurrences in a multi-line text

Well, yeah, but anything is possible with regex. (EXCEPT PARSING HTML, I KNOW.) I meant more along the lines of your typical HTML/CSS markup.

Re: Golden Ratio for Readable Web Typography

#29

Post by Deejahll »

"nature has given us a remarkable blueprint for beautiful and effective proportionality...Evident in plants, animals, the shape of galaxies, and even your DNA..."

The author is buying into unfounded hype and mysticism regarding the golden ratio. Debunked: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/pseudo/fibonacc.htm

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