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Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

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Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#71

Post by vandahm »

creata wrote: post #35

This site, and many other typography-adjacent sites, have comically large text on my desktop computer. What's up with that? (Maybe I've just misconfigured my browser.)

He explained this once, but it's been years and years and I don't have a source link. His argument for using the large fonts hinges on the fact that you keep your desktop monitor farther from your eyes than you do printed materials like books and magazines. Accounting for these distances, a 16-pixel or 18-pixel font size on screen is similar to an 11-point or 12-point font on printed material. Somewhere on his site, I think he has a demonstration with a photograph of a book in front of his monitor that illustrates this, and it looked pretty convincing.

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#72

Post by defanor »

Seeing the title, I suspected that the typography will be messed up. And indeed, instead of my preferred configured font size, it is overly large and set in pixels, the line heights are higher than I would prefer as well (the font I use, Noto Sans, already has a pretty high leading). The situation with colors and margins is similar, to accompany that.

And the reason I guessed it to be that way is because it is like that much of the time: once people focus on something that is not broken too badly, more often they mess it up, rather than improve. I think a much better advice would be just to not touch it. Maybe go roll your own crypto if you feel creative, but stop messing up fonts, colors, and the rest of interfaces: plain HTML is good and sufficient for most web publishing.

Edit: though learning about typography still should not harm. Just applying it poorly--as done most of the time--may be annoying. Also same as with colors and adjacent design subjects.

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#73

Post by criddell »

gherkinnn wrote: post #67
alecst wrote: post #3

I admire all the work the typographers do to make amazing-looking websites, and yet I prefer to read sites (like mathpages, or Dan Luu's site) which have next to no styling. They're just easier for me to read. I'm definitely not hating, but I feel like it's good to keep in mind where the point of diminishing returns is.

> Treat text as user interface > Slightly more famous examples of unornamental websites that treat text as interface are: google, eBay, craigslist, youtube, flickr, Digg, reddit, delicious. If only the article recommended doing just that. Gradients and spinning globes, and intricately designed animations aren't typography. Though Stripe's typography is exquisite. Amusingly enough, text that takes up the full horizont…

I’ve bought a bunch of Stripe’s books and all the ones I have are beautiful objects. My one complaint is the text in some is too small for my aging eyes. I ended up getting an electronic version of Dream Machines for my ereader where I could choose a larger font.

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#74

Post by criddell »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #63
smrq wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this argument unconvincing for the same reason that the answer to the musical loudness war isn't "turn your speakers down". When contrast is maximized 100% of the time, there's no room for emphasis.

Typography has a solution for emphasis that doesn't use contrast, and it's called italics . Use that.

So for your analogy, would you say the solution for compressed dynamic range in music recording would be for artists to use, say, guitar distortion or other audio choices for emphasis in music rather than playing with loudness?

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#75

Post by _Algernon_ »

criddell wrote: post #74
_Algernon_ wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typography has a solution for emphasis that doesn't use contrast, and it's called italics . Use that.

So for your analogy, would you say the solution for compressed dynamic range in music recording would be for artists to use, say, guitar distortion or other audio choices for emphasis in music rather than playing with loudness?

Text and music are two completely separate forms of medium with completely different conventions. Your insistence on comparing them is meaningless.

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#76

Post by shadowbanned0 »

defanor wrote: post #72

Seeing the title, I suspected that the typography will be messed up. And indeed, instead of my preferred configured font size, it is overly large and set in pixels, the line heights are higher than I would prefer as well (the font I use, Noto Sans, already has a pretty high leading). The situation with colors and margins is similar, to accompany that. And the reason I guessed it to be that way is because it is like t…

This is obtuse. Why are you going from one sentence, saying the font size is disproportionate or whatever, then saying your font is Noto Sans? It's fine to pick Noto, that is not my disagreement. But if you are having one setting by the typographer and then choose to override them... yeah, it might be ugly. Because you changed it and are not a typographer. A typeset might not look good in every setting. That's why we have typographers to turn them into visually appealing fonts.

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#78

Post by defanor »

shadowbanned0 wrote: post #76
defanor wrote: post #72

Seeing the title, I suspected that the typography will be messed up. And indeed, instead of my preferred configured font size, it is overly large and set in pixels, the line heights are higher than I would prefer as well (the font I use, Noto Sans, already has a pretty high leading). The situation with colors and margins is similar, to accompany that. And the reason I guessed it to be that way is because it is like t…

This is obtuse. Why are you going from one sentence, saying the font size is disproportionate or whatever, then saying your font is Noto Sans? It's fine to pick Noto, that is not my disagreement. But if you are having one setting by the typographer and then choose to override them... yeah, it might be ugly. Because you changed it and are not a typographer. A typeset might not look good in every setting. That's why we…

> But if you are having one setting by the typographer and then choose to override them... yeah, it might be ugly.

This can be equally viewed from the other (user's) perspective: I had the font set (along with a comfortable size), then apparently the website tried to override it, though I did not notice that. Now I had to both allow custom fonts and enable JS to see its intended font, and it is even less comfortable for me to read, adding serifs, while still having overly high lines.

The reason I mentioned Noto is to better describe what I see, though perhaps it was unnecessary. That is, I saw it in a shape I liked a little more than the one it was intended to be in.

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#79

Post by kuhewa »

shadowbanned0 wrote: post #76
defanor wrote: post #72

Seeing the title, I suspected that the typography will be messed up. And indeed, instead of my preferred configured font size, it is overly large and set in pixels, the line heights are higher than I would prefer as well (the font I use, Noto Sans, already has a pretty high leading). The situation with colors and margins is similar, to accompany that. And the reason I guessed it to be that way is because it is like t…

This is obtuse. Why are you going from one sentence, saying the font size is disproportionate or whatever, then saying your font is Noto Sans? It's fine to pick Noto, that is not my disagreement. But if you are having one setting by the typographer and then choose to override them... yeah, it might be ugly. Because you changed it and are not a typographer. A typeset might not look good in every setting. That's why we…

I can agree with the parent comment that the typography on that page is atypical and not in a good way. Too large to make it easily readable on mobile, not enough margin. Perhaps that's forgivable since it was written 17 years ago before the mobile era. But even in desktop mode, size of typefaces jumps around for seemingly no real reason. Repeated use of the same graphic of historical typesetting for no apparent reason

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#80

Post by crispyambulance »

thrwy_918 wrote: post #29
xnx wrote: post #12

Typography should be left to the user agent and user style sheet. Attempts to make sites "pixel perfect" is the worst habit from the print-world that designers brought online with them.

what percentage of users would you estimate are interested in choosing or writing a user style sheet?

What percentage?

I would estimate a percentage far closer to ZERO than even ONE percent.

Something like 20% of users use adblockers and that takes a fair amount of effort for regular folks. So, right off the bat, we're talking To be able to CREATE a user style sheet that can apply to arbitrary websites without making them look like ass would be very difficult. Unless, of course, one WANTS all websites to look like ass.

I guess, somewhere, there's a nice stash of ready-to-go css that folks can apply (using developer tools or an obscure extension) on their browsers? I don't know. I never looked. But that would involving a lot of fussing I can't imagine normal folks doing that at all.

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