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The billionaire’s typewriter

practicaltypography.com

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Re: The billionaire’s typewriter

#51

Post by logicallee »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #43
jccooper wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a web-based book? I've browsed about and haven't seen a clear explanation. (It took a while to figure out what the hell is going on at that site.) Apparently he considers underlining a sin against typography [ http://practicaltypography.com/underlining.html ] as one of the "bad typewriter habits" [ http://practicaltypography.com/typewriter-habits.html ]. That might be why. Which is funny, because one of…

Using the edges of the pages for navigation as the only option would be ridiculous, but it's not; there are conventional navigation links. Think about reading this on a tablet, where a lot of ebook readers have a convention of turning "pages" by touching the left or right side of the screen, and this may make more sense. Underlining in the typewriter style is a sin against typography. :) I don't like the way Butteric…

I accidentally navigated away from the page I was reading about 8 times (clicking back each time) through stray clicks on the left or right margin where there wasn't anything there.

Re: The billionaire’s typewriter

#52

Post by logicallee »

mapleoin wrote: post #24
ghshephard wrote: post #14

Is it just my MacBook Air + OS X, or is the Font (ironically) on that site painful to read? Compare: https://medium.com/@willgossin/the-uncanny-valley-race-merit... To: http://practicaltypography.com/billionaires-typewriter.html [Edit: Also - no HTTPS? And No Favicon?]

Not sure which you mean. I have a 3200x1800 13" display + Firefox and the practicaltypography font looks amazing. I basically had to read the whole article just because of the joy of the typography. Medium looks washed out in comparison.

> basically had to read the whole article just because of the joy of the typography

I second this sentiment! He's a much better typographer than he is an author. An early paragraph reads, in full, "So, a few words about that." I also disagreed with all his points (e.g. I'd love to just type text as I'm doing into this comment field here with almost no formatting input choices, and get an article like his.) What he would call "eating out of the peanut butter jar".

The way he ended his essay was weak and not convincing. (I don't want to make money off of my writing directly.)

But the typesetting on his byline. Wow.

I was blown away by the typography and found it an absolute pleasure to read. I'd love to have my writing typeset as well. I read through his whole essay despite not agreeing with much (any) of the content.

Re: The billionaire’s typewriter

#53

Post by spydum »

rev_bird wrote: post #31
mryingster wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a great convention? I'm not trying to be contentious, however I am not sure how that is superior to underlining a link, which is a fairly ubiquitous convention. It seems overly cumbersome. It made me think though that perhaps a superscript would serve the same purpose and be less intrusive.

I liked it, if only because it made the text look much more uniform. I imagine it was done out of objection to the "make the link bold and blue and underlined and very different " ethos that even Google was into until recently. With this, I can just read, and if I see a diamond, I know a mouseover will reveal the anchor text and point me toward whether I want to click on the thing or not.

except that mouse over isn't really a thing in all browsers since the advent of mobile browsing.. so it seems his own style choices constrain users freedoms (ironic, isn't that more or less the underlying theme of the rant? enforcing a style choices reduces freedom without providing value? oops)

Re: The billionaire’s typewriter

#54

Post by austenallred »

Medium's typography is simple and readable. I like reading things on Medium more than reading things on most blogs because nobody can mess it up. The focus is on the content. That's exactly what I want; I want to read and not be distracted.

The way this article is displayed, however, is not only distracting, but a perfect example of how dogma-like design choices can take away from the functionality and usability. I understand why the author doesn't believe underlines should be used to represent links, but the diamonds are the most distracting and confusing design I've seen online in a long time.

Re: The billionaire’s typewriter

#55

Post by chipotle_coyote »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #45
shawnhermans wrote: post #37

In most cases, I disagree with the point the author is trying to make. The author is arguing against the heavy restrictions Medium places on typesetting and layout. As a reader and author, I don't want the author to worry about these types of details. I want them to worry about ideas and storytelling. The only exception I can think of to this rule is for highly visual medium like graphic novels. In this case, typeset…

As an author who cares about typography, I don't think these things are mutually exclusive. Butterick's point here is that Medium takes away your choice on the web, where there's very frequently no separation between author and publisher. That separation doesn't exist if you host your own WordPress or Ghost installation, or on Tumblr or WordPress.com -- but it doesn't really exist if you publish on Medium or Svbtle o…

While it's gauche to reply to yourself, I just realized I left that asterisk unconnected. Oops.

*Whenever I talk about how typography matters, I usually get comments (not necessarily on HN) about "content is king" and HTML 2.0 was good enough and how can typesetting possibly matter? Well, sure, content is the most important, but think about an audiobook. It could be read by a professional voice actor, it could be read by the author, and it could be read by your computer's text-to-speech software. Same content each time, barring mispronunciations, but the chances are you'd rather hear the one read by Stephen Fry than the one read by Siri. Typography and graphic design is the visual equivalent. In theory, every print novel could have been reproduced by printing in 12-point Courier and slapping them in three-ring binders, but isn't it nicer that they weren't?

Re: The billionaire’s typewriter

#56

Post by sanderjd »

ghshephard wrote: post #14

Is it just my MacBook Air + OS X, or is the Font (ironically) on that site painful to read? Compare: https://medium.com/@willgossin/the-uncanny-valley-race-merit... To: http://practicaltypography.com/billionaires-typewriter.html [Edit: Also - no HTTPS? And No Favicon?]

I read the whole book recently (almost obsessively) and I think the font is great. I don't think there's some technical thing going on, I think you (and other commenters here) just don't like the font, which is your prerogative of course.

Re: The billionaire’s typewriter

#57

Post by dublinben »

illicium wrote: post #46
jccooper wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a web-based book? I've browsed about and haven't seen a clear explanation. (It took a while to figure out what the hell is going on at that site.) Apparently he considers underlining a sin against typography [ http://practicaltypography.com/underlining.html ] as one of the "bad typewriter habits" [ http://practicaltypography.com/typewriter-habits.html ]. That might be why. Which is funny, because one of…

Not to mention the 24px body type that fits less than two paragraphs per page

It was the aggressive hyphenation of words that really did it for me.

Re: The billionaire’s typewriter

#58

Post by state »

"As a writer, the biggest po­ten­tial waste of your time is not ty­pog­ra­phy chores, but Medium it­self. Be­cause in re­turn for that snazzy de­sign, Medium needs you to re­lin­quish con­trol of how your work gets to readers."

Amen. Finally, someone has put this simply. The issue here has nothing to do with type. The author does a pretty good job of pointing out why Medium's pandering to design is clearly B.S. — but most importantly it's a complete ruse. It's a distraction from the fact that they own you.

Edit: If you'd like to downvote my viewpoint, I'd appreciate that you offer some kind of insight into why.

Re: The billionaire’s typewriter

#59

Post by raihansaputra »

mintplant wrote: post #27
ghshephard wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That answers my question then - on the 1440x900 13" MBAir, the black lettering from Practical Typography is jarring, and unpleasant to read for long periods of time for me, but Medium flows very well - and I read tons of material on their site. PT is just very unwelcoming for me to read - both the diamonds all over the place (which reminds me of the PCL printout when you didn't have the correct font installed), and t…

I'm on a few-years-old Lenovo laptop with an ordinary 1366x768 display, and it looks fine to me. What browser are you using? Can you take a screenshot?

I'm on MacBook Air too and it does look weird. I'm browsing on Google Chrome. Here's the screenshot: http://imgur.com/jI4bqd9

Re: The billionaire’s typewriter

#60

Post by maemilius »

illicium wrote: post #46
jccooper wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a web-based book? I've browsed about and haven't seen a clear explanation. (It took a while to figure out what the hell is going on at that site.) Apparently he considers underlining a sin against typography [ http://practicaltypography.com/underlining.html ] as one of the "bad typewriter habits" [ http://practicaltypography.com/typewriter-habits.html ]. That might be why. Which is funny, because one of…

Not to mention the 24px body type that fits less than two paragraphs per page

This. The first thing I did when I got to his page was turn that to, like, 18px. Infinitely easier to read, imo.
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