[WEB4LIB] Re: DOH! Re: Fonts and Zoom utilities

[Byron C. Mayes]

At 10:21 AM 11/16/98 -0800, P.A. Gantt wrote:
>Life happens my fine friend.
>
>Oh, "conventional" wisdom from
>typographers says that Times/Courier
>and the like of Serifs is best for print (hardcopy)
>but the source I cited was *groundbreaking* to this
>extent also... the first to say that there is *no* significant
>difference between sans vs. serif for print. Generally
>typographers have said that serif was significantly better
>for readability for print.

Zuzana Licko of Emigre Graphics likes to point out that at the time of
their introduction, serif typefaces (like Garamond or Aldus) were
considered unreadable. These faces predated the more recent "Transitional"
faces like Times and the even more "extreme" "Modern" faces like Bodoni, so
to the eyes of an earlier time the London Times would indeed "blind the
eyes of all who read it" (a paraphrase of a quote about a serif face the
name of which I forget right now). 

Also, as a reference point for readability, mosts telephone books in the US
are exclusively sans serif (Bell Centennial or something similar). I for
one can't imagine trying to look at the phone book in a serif face. I think
it would be really jarring. On the other hand, the New York Times in sans
serif just wouldn't look right, even if every word were actually a bit
clearer. Arial does look clearer to me on my screen, but font bitmaps are
generally designed more for screen readability than for accurate display of
how the print will look (I'm thinking only of the letterforms, not kerning,
color, and other layout-oriented issues).

I think part of it is current practice, part of it is tradition, part of it
is what people are used to seeing. I'm not convinced that there is any
purely objective data on what's "easier to read".

Byron


Prof. Byron C. Mayes
Systems Librarian/Assistant Professor, Hunter College of the City
University of
New York
695 Park Avenue * New York, New York 10021
bcmayes at hunter.cuny.edu  * 212-772-4168 * Fax: 212-772-5113
Listowner, BLACK-IP, Black Information Professionals' Network