Throwing out the baby with the bathwater. These people have done their 10k hours in the field while you've done it in a different field - and it just comes off as ignorant bullying to call them charlatans etc.
For example:
> Their little flourishes such as changing the letter spacing are usually an insult to the original font designer, but that is something they feel compelled to do
Yes that's what's supposed to happen. Why? Because font technology is incredibly crude and undeveloped when it comes to letter spacing and making things _readable_. Calling it out just displays ignorance of the field, and ignorance of one's own ignorance to boot.
_But_ having said that, I think you are getting at the key point - which is that there is a huge impedance mismatch between centuries of print design (e.g. point size, spacing that digital fonts can't do) and the new constraints and capabilities of digital (e.g. variable contrast, accessibility). That is reflected in toolsets and skillsets (this thread demonstrate well that technically trained people are equally ill-equipped to recognise, let alone bridge that). This is what the whole article was about even if it did seem to go around the houses a bit.
For example:
> Their little flourishes such as changing the letter spacing are usually an insult to the original font designer, but that is something they feel compelled to do
Yes that's what's supposed to happen. Why? Because font technology is incredibly crude and undeveloped when it comes to letter spacing and making things _readable_. Calling it out just displays ignorance of the field, and ignorance of one's own ignorance to boot.
_But_ having said that, I think you are getting at the key point - which is that there is a huge impedance mismatch between centuries of print design (e.g. point size, spacing that digital fonts can't do) and the new constraints and capabilities of digital (e.g. variable contrast, accessibility). That is reflected in toolsets and skillsets (this thread demonstrate well that technically trained people are equally ill-equipped to recognise, let alone bridge that). This is what the whole article was about even if it did seem to go around the houses a bit.