A random thread for small things that don't really warrant a thread of their own

[ian]

Three full days of hiking over the weekend (to atone for a week in the US) and then cycling home this evening and it seems some evildoer has replaced my legs with some kind of ineffectual rubbery substance.

[T42]

That's the way mine feel every morning.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Originally developed by the Swiss designer Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann in 1957, the font has been the subject of a MoMa exhibition and a documentary, and was the typeface of choice for many designers, among them Hedi Slimane. But that Marmite response the font provokes could be about to change, with Helvetica Now: a redesign to help it survive in the internet age.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2019/apr/24/helvetica-now-marmite-font-redesigned-internet-age

I'd have thought the Marmite of fonts was Comic Sans...

[Ham]

I'd have thought the Marmite of fonts was Comic Sans...

I'm sorry does that mean you think some people actually like it? not just use it by accident?

[Kim]

I'd have thought the Marmite of fonts was Comic Sans...

I'm sorry does that mean you think some people actually like it? not just use it by accident?

Everyone in primary education, for starters.  Even if that's because it's the only one of the Microsoft core fonts that's got a "proper 'a' without a squiggly bit".

I'll forgive the people using it for dyslexia-friendliness, as they're merely ill-informed rather than lacking in taste.

[hellymedic]

Sassoon is a nicer school type font but it is VERY pricy...

[Cudzoziemiec]

Some people love Comic Sans because it's jolly. What I don't like about it is the roughness of the edges. Sassoon looks decent, I hadn't heard of it before. I rather like Helvetica, perhaps I simply haven't noticed the people complaining about it. But then let's face it, on a population scale, font hate or font love is rather specialised.

[Beardy]

I prefer upright san serif fonts for their, to my eye, clean lines, but beyond that I don’t have a preference. However, As I understand it serif fonts are supposed to be easier to read.

As for dyslexia friendly fonts, I gave up that battle a long time ago and have developed my own strategies for reading. This is why I cannot usually pronounce words I have been introduced to in writing.

[ian]

I write my 'a' with a squiggly bit (and my lower case 'r') – I guess that makes me a fundamentalist anti-Comic Sans. I can't see it without thinking CHURCH TOMBOLA or Primary School Parent Teacher Evening.

Traditionally serif fonts were easier to read in print, but low-resolution screens made them hard on the eye as the world moved online. Nowadays with high dpi screens and devices, there's not a lot in it. Sans Serif fonts always make for good headings, beyond a certain size, the serifs and fat lines start to unbalance the appearance of the text, even for a kerning ninja like moi (light variants can mitigate some of this to maintain elegance at larger sizes). Sans serif let you have nice clean lines at large sizes.

I still prefer Sans Serif on screen (I use Open Sans and Lato) but I can't read sans serif fonts in print. I am a certified font nerd though.

As the mothership is going through another re-branding exercise, we're back on Calibri which seems to be the font-ish expression of dull inoffensiveness. There's a custom font for headings which, like most custom fonts, looks like it was made on a (small) budget.

[citoyen]

Traditionally serif fonts were easier to read in print, but low-resolution screens made them hard on the eye as the world moved online. Nowadays with high dpi screens and devices, there's not a lot in it.

It's funny how a lot of typography 'rules' are based on obsolete technology and practices. The habit of, for example, spelling out 'per cent' rather than using the % symbol is a legacy of old printing tech that couldn't render the symbol clearly in a small font. (Although I can't find a source to back up this story - it's just one of those things I remember having been told once by an old-school print production manager.)

[ian]

I was told the same thing and looking at anything printed (through metal type) a few decades back on basic paper stock, it's easy to believe. Modern digital repro is another world.

[Kim]

I still prefer Sans Serif on screen (I use Open Sans and Lato) but I can't read sans serif fonts in print. I am a certified font nerd though.

I'm funny about screen fonts.  It very much depends on what I'm doing.  Sans serif is fine for webpages, but for ebooks (on a high resolution mobile device) I like a traditional serifed font.  As soon as I start dealing with technical stuff (code, logfiles, etc) the most important thing is that it's monospaced, followed by easy discrimination of ambiguous characters ('1','l','I' etc).
 Monospaced fonts are much easier to skim-read vertically, which is important for geek stuff, and I find it helpful for realtime things like IRC (though I tend to use something Courier-ish for that, rather than my usual Bitstream Vera Sans).  I also use Courier for plain text email, because I'm an old fart and generally try to get the formatting right.

As the mothership is going through another re-branding exercise, we're back on Calibri which seems to be the font-ish expression of dull inoffensiveness.

Don't get barakta started on Calibri...


I wonder how the generation raised on Comic Sans feel about such things...

[woollypigs]

I like the idea of this https://www.dyslexiefont.com/en/typeface/ I have tried to use it on the Kindle App (I think it was this app that does it), but I don't read much in there to really try it.

I often can't really be arsed to changed my fonts around, but when I do I often try to set it to the Ubuntu font, which I really like.

[T42]

Traditionally serif fonts were easier to read in print, but low-resolution screens made them hard on the eye as the world moved online. Nowadays with high dpi screens and devices, there's not a lot in it.

It's funny how a lot of typography 'rules' are based on obsolete technology and practices. The habit of, for example, spelling out 'per cent' rather than using the % symbol is a legacy of old printing tech that couldn't render the symbol clearly in a small font. (Although I can't find a source to back up this story - it's just one of those things I remember having been told once by an old-school print production manager.)

My favourite: The French word évènement was always pronounced that way but until recently it was spelt événement because one of the typesetters of the first edition of the Académie Française's dictionary ran out of è blocks and used an é instead. Even now the è spelling is merely "tolerated".

And as it happens, the ". at the end of that sentence would have been typeset ." irrespective of grammar, because the " block protected the tiny . block on early presses.

[hellymedic]

I used to like Comic Sans but it now equates to spurious infantilisation to me.
Though I learned to read quickly as a small, I found the 'a's an 'g's in printed matter confusing for a long time.
I too prefer serif fonts for large blocks of printed text. I don't do e-books.

Rosemary Sassoon's daughter is a personal friend of mine.

Though I was always interested in typography, receiving my first computer at exactly the time I was suffering and then recovering from total wipe-out of my left optic nerve taught me much about fonts, legibility and readability.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I wonder how the generation raised on Comic Sans feel about such things...

I don't think there is such a generation. There is a generation with greater exposure to it but even for them, it's only been the funny font used on certain pieces of school stuff, never the universal default.

[Mr Larrington]

Calibri is the default font in paint.net.  No-one knows why.  When I discovered it could be changed, I was hugely tempted to use Thee Typeface Ov Champions instead.

[lou boutin]

I like the idea of this https://www.dyslexiefont.com/en/typeface/ I have tried to use it on the Kindle App (I think it was this app that does it), but I don't read much in there to really try it.

I often can't really be arsed to changed my fonts around, but when I do I often try to set it to the Ubuntu font, which I really like.

I can't use that font at all.  The font moves than other fonts for me.

[Kim]

Ugh, that's even more horrid than Thee Typeface Ov Champions.  I'm not dyslexic, thobut.

[Cudzoziemiec]

A font that works well in one language might not be so good in another, due to the frequency with which different letters occur, how they combine, use of diacritics and punctuation.

[andrewc]

I've been using bright blue Gill Sans in 16pt for work emails for years, it just seems a decent size.  Recently a bloke has started replying to my emails asking me to reduce the size. It's not like I'm SHOUTING at him ?   

[andrewc]

Airdryers vs paper towels.  More than you could possibly wish to know.   https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/25/hand-dryers-paper-towels-hygiene-dyson-airblade


You still can't dry your face with an Airblade.

[Mrs Pingu]

16pt font does seem large. Or at least it will if everyone else uses 12...

[barakta]

I asked around over 200 dyslexia experts once if there was ANY evidence that font-face improved things for dyslexics on average and the consensus was no not really beyond 'sans serif'. Font faces tend to be very influenced by trends, so pre 1990s courier was liked, then Times etc, then Arial, then Comic sodding Sans and then the font whose name I do not mention except to say "never send me anything in it" Calibri...  I can't read Calibri for some reason, it just won't scan properly.

I have issues with the so called dyslexia friendly fonts as they may help a few people, but they dis-able a great deal many more... Like Kim I can't read dyslexie and friends cos they move around and distort. I think if it helps some, it's good to have as an option but I'd never have it as the main or only font like someone I know did for an event. Even after I told her it was disabling loads of people including partially sighted readers... Person had got it into per head that dyslexie = accessible, therefore she was using regardless of feedback saying otherwise from anyone else...

I generally prefer sans serif fonts on paper and screen. I find a lot of modern "fine" fonts far too thin which makes them very hard to read. I have my screen res set low and I zoom text considerably. I also have an app (Mercury Reader) which sometimes reformats webpages (especially news pages) to stop moving images and make the font readable.

[hellymedic]

I like Gill Sans aesthetically but can understand it might be too 'light' for some people like barakta.

Arial seems like a good vanilla font but I stand to be corrected.