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Times New Bastard

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31–40 of 138 posts

Re: Times New Bastard

#31
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.

People really seem to hate "handwritten" fonts. Comic Sans is the mainstream example, but there are a lot of other ones. As others said, stylistic alternatives definitely exist in most font packages, especially commercial ones used with Adobe products. So the fact that they are not widely used outside of graphic design probably goes back to people generally hate fonts that look handwritten for anything besides weddin…

As GP indicated, the important thing is that Comic Sans doesn't appear handwritten because it lacks variation. Just like good Calligraphy doesn't appear handwritten. In genuine (non-Calligraphic) handwriting there will be minor variations in each letter (say, the letter "s"), even though in general all instances of the letter will be more similar to each other than the same letter in someone else's handwriting.

Re: Times New Bastard

#32
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?!

OpenType is basically turing-complete via glyph shaping. There's an explanation here: https://litherum.blogspot.com/2019/03/addition-font.html

Re: Times New Bastard

#34
It reminds me of lawyergrams, where the language is constructed to antagonize and threaten while still being logically and legally specific and correct - a kind of ransom note with airs. I'd wonder if some white shoe firm has gone to the trouble of commissioning an in-house font based on similar design principles to this Times New Bastard, just for that purpose.

Re: Times New Bastard

#36
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.

Re: Times New Bastard

#37
post #28
post #21

The biggest problem with this is that it's too obvious, if you really want to fuck with people it should require more effort for them to tell what's wrong. An insidious little niggle that grates upon the mind.

So something like Helvetica but every so often you sneak in Arial?

That wouldn't be bad, but I think you could do something more off-putting with something like deliberately slightly bad kerning.

I'm not sure of the extent to which you could use ligatures to tweak the serifs, rather than remove them completely (if possible - frustration will be maximised if the reader is unable to tell what's wrong, even after they come to believe that something is wrong).

Re: Times New Bastard

#39

(2019)

This is true, and I know there is sometimes such a convention. However, I can't find it in the guidelines, and I thought it better to preserve the original title as best as possible with 79 characters before someone ekse truncated the title.

the unwritten convention is let us know this is not new or an update on an old story. It's just a courtesy.

Re: Times New Bastard

#40

It reminds me of lawyergrams, where the language is constructed to antagonize and threaten while still being logically and legally specific and correct - a kind of ransom note with airs. I'd wonder if some white shoe firm has gone to the trouble of commissioning an in-house font based on similar design principles to this Times New Bastard, just for that purpose.

The word you used, “lawyergrams” is so niche that it shows up only in a couple places on internet and no one knows what it means, including dictionaries and ChatGPT.
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