
Choosing the perfect typeface - alagu
http://www.cucumbertown.com/craft/choosing-the-perfect-typeface/
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adwf
Interesting read, but I still think that people spend faaaaaaaar too much time
thinking about typefaces. I just don't think they make as much of an impact on
the page as people think they do.

At first glance, I thought the "elite" and "subtle" were both the same face,
and likewise with the "informal"/"playful". It's only because they were blown
up to a large size that I actually started noticing a tiny difference. Maybe
it's just me?

To me, the overall layout of the page is far more important. eg. margins,
font-size, line-height, paragraph width, etc.

The exception to my rule, that I might spend more time on, is for big
newspaper style headlines. Those I treat more like images/artwork than like
text, so they get commensurately more attention devoted to them.

~~~
huhtenberg
You are wrong.

Even if you cannot readily quantify the difference between, say, Roboto and
Source Sans, the difference _is_ there and your perception of either is
different. The difference might be slight, but it is sufficient to skew your
"2 second" impression in the wrong (or the right) direction. For example, even
though Roboto and SS are almost the same typeface, Roboto in regular weight
renders much heavier than Source Sans, so if you are to use for a product that
is meant to exude lightness and airness, it would work worse than if you were
to use SS.

Things like overall feel and the "rhythm" of a typeface take an effort to
notice, quantify and rationalize, but they are of an UTMOST perceptive
importance. Ever noticed the quirky lowercase "a" in Proxima Nova? Ever
noticed how that "a" just steals the show if it appears in a sizes larger than
16px? No? Just pay closer attention next time ;) The same goes for HF&J's
Whitney - it looks like just another sans-serif font on the surface, but it
just feels _friendlier_. Try and quantify that (Kotaku uses it, go check it
out).

First impression is hugely important and a typeface choice plays a very big
part in it. Don't make a mistake of underestimating it.

~~~
ajross
Has that actually been studied? I mean, is there a quantifiable "2 second
impression" that can be measured as different between Roboto and Source Sans?
I see this kind of argument made all the time by afficionados of some
aesthetic or another (microbrew fans, car nuts, etc...) and invariably the
science ends up showing that e.g. wine quality can't be measured objectively
at all.

My point here isn't (ahem) "You are wrong.", but more that I think you need to
get some perspective about the distinction between strongly held opinion and
objective fact.

~~~
vdaniuk
Yep, there is quite a problem with that. I've recently was looking for proof
that Golden Ratio aesthetical qualities are indeed the global optima for at
least some categories of objects. I've found nothing.

~~~
huhtenberg
There's at least one published study with a very large sampling base. I know
because I was as skeptical as you are, then I saw the study mentioned in some
design book, looked it up and it did in fact exist. I'll try and find the
name, but I'm not sure if I still got the book where it was mentioned.

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musicalentropy
Very interesting read ! Thanks a lot.

Right now, I'm trying to learn a few things about webdesign, and I have spent
some time on typography yet. However, I know a few basics now, a few things
about typography history, but I have never been able to find tutorials about
the "why should I use this typeface or this other one there". It's like
everybody is able to speak about typography theory but not about practice and
thinking.

Someone knows where I can find other articles about practice ? Thanks !

~~~
L_Rahman
My personal favorite is Mike Butterick's Practical Typography. He's a
programmer, typographer, and lawyer and the book is entirely web based.
They're static pages generated by code he wrote in Racket, a language in the
Lisp family.

For a quick introduction check out a small section of the book: Typography in
Ten Minutes [http://practicaltypography.com/typography-in-ten-
minutes.htm...](http://practicaltypography.com/typography-in-ten-minutes.html)

The book in full:
[http://practicaltypography.com/](http://practicaltypography.com/)

~~~
generj
Practical Typography is excellent. Excellent. I think he makes some hyperbolic
statements at times, but Butterick as a whole is very accessible.

The only annoyance was ignoring Butterick's plugs for his personal typefaces.

I was very happy to buy a copy of his typography for lawyers book for a friend
as recompense for this resource.

~~~
L_Rahman
I was actually okay with the plugs for his own typefaces. Since the book was
free, I thought it was fair that he suggest people buy his typefaces to pay
for the free product especially since many will be taking his advice to create
products that are intended to make money.

But yes, an absolutely accessible and excellent resource. I've been sending to
links to various pages and chapters to my friends in the hopes that they'll
choose better typefaces after reading.

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ddoolin
I really wish I could learn to analyze typefaces better, like the author. When
evaluating a typeface for my projects, I usually just eyeball it, never
spending more than a few minutes. I hadn't really thought of thinking about
the target audience instead of just a font that simply matches the design.

There are some great tips in there that I imagine would help one pick a
fitting typeface for most projects.

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mVChr
All that time, thought and work and they ended up choosing Freight Micro?

[http://www.cucumbertown.com/craft/wp-
content/uploads/2013/10...](http://www.cucumbertown.com/craft/wp-
content/uploads/2013/10/freigh.png)

Look at that 'a' and the 's' (among other assorted ugliness)... ugh!

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digitalengineer
Nice read, but I'm left with some questions. Thisis a website where one can
find recepies and read those with the instructions _while you 're cooking_ if
I'm correct. If so, I'd love to hear if the author actually studied some users
in their kitchen while cooking a new recipe and using these new fonts.

~~~
anandgrafiti
We did. Infact the specimen sheets were tested with random users in their
cooking environment and the reading patterns were analysed. We noticed that
line heights needs to be liberal and open counter letter forms fare better in
such scenarios. Again, these are pure observation based conclusions and the
same fonts when tested with improved type settings have been reviewed well by
the users.

~~~
eps
How big was your sampling group?

Because what you wrote is exactly what I would've written based on common
typographical sense and after sticking an iPad under my wife's nose a couple
of times while she was cooking. In other words what you wrote looks made up.

~~~
anandgrafiti
Ofcource i cant claim that the sampling group was big enough for us to make a
generic judgement. But for the record, we had 10 users testing it in realtime
cooking environments and several others we follow closely at our curated
community at facebook. What you claim as common typographic sense is not
common to everyone, even in the world of design. People follow patterns and
those patterns may or may not work for you in your projects. Assumptions are
one thing, but validation is another. In a world where everything needs a
reasoning, some process is required for answering questions like why this or
why not that..

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ChikkaChiChi
Typefaces are meaningless.

Now that I have your attention I'll blow your mind: A good typeface on a bad
site does nothing but polish the turd. Designers that obsess over typefaces
also generally give equal care to spacing and layout that when all put
together makes for a great site.

Flipboard would never have chosen Comic Sans as a font and people that pushed
Helvetica Neue would never use dancing chipmunk gifs in their layout.

~~~
anandgrafiti
True, you should not think of your redesign/design thinking about type. That
will be a disaster. But somewhere along the way you need to start looking into
the options available and the personality you want to deliver though your
designs.

Psst! I never get people's hatred for comic sans..its a typeface designed for
a purpose. Now its not anyones mistake that Microsoft started packaging it
with the OS and the HR departments of the corporate world thought of it as
cool to use to be friendly in communication:P

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
It's a low hanging fruit. That and it's also immediately recognizable so you
are immediately ready to critique everything else.

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ryandrake
Why can't you just A/B test 50 different typefaces and measure which one best
produces the user behavior that you're after?

Take the subjectivity out of it.

~~~
teraflop
A/B testing is great when the value you're trying to optimize can be easily
measured, such as short-term conversion rate. If your goal is "users should
think the site is aesthetically pleasing", that's going to be a hard one to
monitor.

~~~
ryandrake
But if you're running a business, that's not necessarily going to be your end
goal. You want users to "think the site is aesthetically pleasing" because
those pleased users [convert more / are more engaged / view more ads],
whatever your key metric is. And those are typically easy to measure.

~~~
anandgrafiti
There are far more variables here to measure. First of all what constitutes
that fifty you are thinking of rolling out? Lets say you arrive at it and
what's next? For an engaged user the AB testing can measure up as you can
define clear set of tasks and desired outcomes. But as i stated above, good
type often goes invisible. People engage with the content and the not
the,medium to tell you anything tangible. One cannot take away the
subjectivity from the process when there is not anything tangible to measure.

