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Retrocide Mono – A monospaced font with no decenders

geonot.github.io

41–50 of 63 posts

Re: Retrocide Mono – A monospaced font with no decenders

#41
post #8

Ancient Latin and Ancient Greek also did just that: lowercase didn’t exist yet. Makes me want to try and write code in uppercase only (or not). I like the theme of the website, though!

Trajan (the font) was basically made for you. Pretty good looking, too.

Re: Retrocide Mono – A monospaced font with no decenders

#42

Hey, this is my first font design, constructive criticism welcome! Thanks.

Cool concept. I like the lowercase q a lot. The misaligned dot (tittle) on the lowercase i and j bugs me. It feels off to have it at different heights. I'd try making the i taller to match the j.

Re: Retrocide Mono – A monospaced font with no decenders

#43

I'm unsure if "no descenders" provides increased clarity. For example, lowercase q is easy to recognize because your eyes are already drawn to it being one of few characters that descend. In the case of this font, you have a small uppercase Q as the lowercase q. This feels like it accomplishes the opposite of this stated benefit.

Was wondering this to. Then I saw the final item in the list of uses: ASCII art...

Re: Retrocide Mono – A monospaced font with no decenders

#44
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm unsure if "no descenders" provides increased clarity. Of course not: if it did we would be doing it that way everywhere. Typeface design has thousands of years of history, there's only a few major variations in latin types and we've tried them all. Descenders exist for a reason. This type is pretty cool for what it is meant for, the retro aesthetics. Old school digital displays (like alarm clocks) don't have de…

> Descenders exist for a reason. Yeah but I wouldn't just assume it's because they are the optimal solution. Look at architectural handwriting, very clear, no descenders.

> Look at architectural handwriting, very clear, no descenders.

I just looked it up, and every example I see has descenders in the lowercase letters.

Re: Retrocide Mono – A monospaced font with no decenders

#45
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Descenders exist for a reason. Yeah but I wouldn't just assume it's because they are the optimal solution. Look at architectural handwriting, very clear, no descenders.

> Look at architectural handwriting, very clear, no descenders. I just looked it up, and every example I see has descenders in the lowercase letters.

technical drawings and notes are almost always all caps

Re: Retrocide Mono – A monospaced font with no decenders

#46
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm unsure if "no descenders" provides increased clarity. Of course not: if it did we would be doing it that way everywhere. Typeface design has thousands of years of history, there's only a few major variations in latin types and we've tried them all. Descenders exist for a reason. This type is pretty cool for what it is meant for, the retro aesthetics. Old school digital displays (like alarm clocks) don't have de…

> Descenders exist for a reason. Yeah but I wouldn't just assume it's because they are the optimal solution. Look at architectural handwriting, very clear, no descenders.

Many styles of architectural handwriting use descenders in the lower case. (Many other styles forbid or disdain the lower case.)

Re: Retrocide Mono – A monospaced font with no decenders

#47
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look at architectural handwriting, very clear, no descenders. I just looked it up, and every example I see has descenders in the lowercase letters.

technical drawings and notes are almost always all caps

It doesn’t really count as “no descenders” if you’re only using letters which don’t have any to begin with. And all caps is harder to read fluidly, so that also doesn’t support the point.

Re: Retrocide Mono – A monospaced font with no decenders

#48
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

technical drawings and notes are almost always all caps

It doesn’t really count as “no descenders” if you’re only using letters which don’t have any to begin with. And all caps is harder to read fluidly, so that also doesn’t support the point.

Yes, they've specifically chosen to avoid ascenders/descenders for clarity and uniform spacing. I don't see how that's not relevant.

Re: Retrocide Mono – A monospaced font with no decenders

#49
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t really count as “no descenders” if you’re only using letters which don’t have any to begin with. And all caps is harder to read fluidly, so that also doesn’t support the point.

Yes, they've specifically chosen to avoid ascenders/descenders for clarity and uniform spacing. I don't see how that's not relevant.

> I don't see how that's not relevant.

Because it’s apples to oranges.

Deciding “my typeface won’t have any lowercase letters” is not the same as “my typeface won’t have descenders”. Technically none of them has descenders, but the former compromises by reducing the amount of characters—which keeps every remaining letterform distinct at the expense of reading fluidity—while the latter compromises by distorting a good chunk of letters—making them ambiguous and harder to read.

I very much doubt architects decided “let’s write everything in all caps because that avoids descenders”.

And again, while looking it up I see no end of examples of technical writing with lowercase letters, and they all have descenders.

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