Font Geekery

[figmo]

Today a memo came across at KLIV that dictated that "the font we use in the newsroom is 11 or 12 point Ariel." (sic)

Luckily for me, there's no such font as "Ariel" (emphasis on the one letter mine), but....

It's impossible to tell an uppercase "I" from a lowercase "l" in Arial. Take the following sentence:

Ilana Il Ibrahim met Ilano by the llano.

In Times you can read it. Now to show it in Arial:

Ilana Il Ibrahim met Ilano by the llano.

Ludicrous, isn't it? There's only one font that's worse, and that's Helvetica:

Ilana Il Ibrahim met Ilano by the llano.

Let's show it in Courier for comparison:

Ilana Il Ibrahim met Ilano by the llano.

I actually think Courier is best for news copy because, when set at 65 characters per line, it takes around four seconds per line of text to read the copy. You can't do that kind of guestimating with a variable width font.

If you like the Arial "look" but want something readable, a better font is Verdana:

Ilana Il Ibrahim met Ilano by the llano.

I wrote my boss a memo to this effect. IMHO Arial had become the default font for most of the department because it was set up as the default font on all the computers. "Default" does not mean it's the right font to use.

Comments

I'm with you

[mdlbear]

I have my browser set up to default to Times Roman, and in most cases I check the "use my fonts, damn it" box. I don't care how pretty they look; sans-serif fonts should only be used for headings.

And, of course, I edit in emacs, which I set up for Courier at whatever size works out to 12 point on whatever monitor I'm using. I've never seen any point in doing my editing in anything but the most readable font possible.

Don't get me started on idiot web designers who set the font size to something absolute -- and absolutely unreadable. I've been known to ship them a GIF of my entire desktop to show them how stupid their work looks on a 1600x1200 display.

Re: I'm with you

[johno.livejournal.com]

My pet peeve is the folks who set "FONT SIZE=-3" for all their text.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

I'm currently rewriting a series of documents for work, including such things as emergency plans and crisis management procedures, all in slightly different fonts. Therefore I'm using Times New Roman 12 or 14. And italics for things good to know that aren't directly relevant, and BOLD for life-safety warnings (of which there are a depressing number).

For example: NEVER fight a fire larger than 100 (one hundred) square feet, including vertical area, with a hand extinguisher. An untrained person can put out 200 to 400 ft(2) of flame with a 3A-30BC extinguisher, and you need safety margin for your own escape. A trained firefighter can extinguish 700 to 900 ft(2) of fire with the same extinguisher</>

I do _like_ Arial because it's easier on my eyes. I tend to use it for brief signage because it cranks up to larger font sizes (think 120 or 144) without distortion.

Back when I was doing speech and debate it was Courier monospaced font all the way baby for exactly Figmo's reason . . . rapid eyeball-estimation of actual delivery times, typically by page.

I hate justified documents and hyphenation, and love a ragged right edge. I set my E-books to display accordingly. Apparently I'm rare in this preference.

Re: I'm with you

[hrrunka]

We had an IBM flat-screen on test at the office a while back that was 3840x2400 and had a dot pitch of 204dpi. It was the bees knees for looking at NASA hi-res photos. However, any website "optimised" for 800x600 or whatever was likely to be unreadably small...

As for sans-serif fonts, yeah, I'm fairly sure they're designed to cause confusion, but for some inexplicable reason company policy-makers seem to pick them as company-standard with monotonous regularity. Something to do with them being "modern"...

Re: I'm with you

[figmo.livejournal.com]

One of the studies I read said people perceive sans-serif fonts and blocky serif fonts such as Verdana and Tahoma as "modern."

When I was at NASA they wanted to use Helvetica for their User Guide. I had pages of data to back up a decision to use New Century Schoolbook instead, which seemed best suited to their needs and audience.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

I hate justified documents and hyphenation, and love a ragged right edge. I set my E-books to display accordingly. Apparently I'm rare in this preference.

No you're not. Studies have shown text with ragged right margins is easier to read than justified text because the spacing is more natural. As for hyphenation, the same holds true. It's harder to follow a hyphenation from line to line than it is to read unhyphenated text.

Btw, if you want a more readable serif font for printed text (check out the difference between capital "I" and lowercase "l" and the number "1"), I highly recommend New Century Schoolbook or Palatino. Some forms of Garamond are popular that way, too, while others are a pain to read because of the small "x size."

Re: I'm with you

[hrrunka]

Yep. I once referred to a company choice of Helvetica as a "triumph of style over content", which probably wasn't too tactful...

[poltr1]

At least Arial and Helvetica denote a difference between the lowercase "l" and the numeral "1". With Times and Courier fonts, there's very little (if any) distinction between the characters.

Of course, the good part about that is that I used to get very little spam in my email box, since my email address had both characters. Unfortunately, that's no longer the case.

I'm just waiting for a DJ at KLIV to play some somgs from the 1940's and introduce them as songs from World War Eye Eye. Maybe then the policy will get changed pronto.

[mdlbear]

One of the reasons I usually go for Times is the large x size and slightly narrower average width: it was specifically designed for cramming the maximum number of characters into a line without loss of readability.

This translates directly into less scrolling.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

KLIV used to play songs from the 1940s before it went all-news in 1991.

Given the fonts, though, I'd expect someone to refer to "World War Ill."

Garamond fanboy!

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

I'll admit that I am partial to Garamond, though Times New Roman will do in a pinch.

Stamp out Arial!

Re: Garamond fanboy!

[figmo.livejournal.com]

Some flavors of Garamond are excellent for printed word; others don't have enough "x-space" to be easily read at 12 points or smaller.

Give Me Serifed Body Any Day

[(Anonymous)]

Studies have repeatedly shown that serif fonts are easier to read for body text than are sans serif -- in print. Since you're talking about print (and most of my work is designed for it), I agree with you that Arial is a poor choice of font. Something like Zapf Calligraphic or Zapf Elliptical is my choice (nice large letters - I am not fond of the narrow type found in some Garamonds, for example). So, naturally, Arial is the REQUIRED font at work. Of course, at my previous workplace it was Lucida Sans, which is only marginally better. For onscreen, though, sans serif is a better choice and will continue to be until screen resolution improves to >150 dpi. (The 220 dpi screens in test now intrigue me. Remind me to win the lottery.) Even on sharp screens, little serifs bother the eyes at low res. Good luck getting the management to change things. Maybe print two copies of everything -- one for show, one for use? - B -