FRIDAY SURPRISE: It's the little things that make life pleasant
One of the reasons I hate
the very concept of reading books online is because of the
typefaces involved. (In fact, that's one of the saddest parts of
the entire online experience.) There are only a handful that will
reproduce distinctively on a website, and if you're using a Windows
PC (as opposed to a Mac) that number is cut in half (due to the way
Microsoft renders type.) Even such niceties as italics and boldface
are substandard - or non-existent - when getting words through the
'net.
(A typeface, BTW, is a family of type; a "font" is a specific style within that typeface. For instance, Arial is a typeface consisting of the fonts Arial Regular, Arial Bold, Arial Italic, etc.)
Typestyles are tremendously important in their ability to bring emotion to print. One gets a profoundly different feeling reading a paragraph in, say, Caslon versus that same text in Optima. Subtle variances in typefaces can bring huge changes to how the words are perceived by the reader, and the skilled designer recognizes and exploits that.
Look, for instance, at my masthead at the top of the page. The typeface, which is part of the image, reproduces as it should on your machine because it's not webpage text; it was inserted into the image, then output as part of the JPEG of the gun. I did it that way because I wanted the design elements of that particular type, and there was no way to get it as simple text on the page. The masthead would not look the same, nor convey the same feeling, if it were anything else.
Contrast that with the rest of the text on the page, all of which is generated by your computer's HTML rendering engine. It is sterile, and lacks the subtleties of the image at top. (If you're using a PC, the difference is even more profound.) In short, it just doesn't look as nice!
The beauty of one specific typeface is the subject of a neat feature-length independent film called, simply, "Helvetica." Filmmaker Gary Hustwit looks at this ubiquitous type, where it came from and why it's important in the wider world of graphic design. I know, it sounds dry - but I found it to be engaging as it persuaded me to take a closer look at something that is, quite literally, everywhere. If you're a fan of good design, you should check it out.
It's currently available for online viewing at Google video.
-=[ Grant ]=-
(A typeface, BTW, is a family of type; a "font" is a specific style within that typeface. For instance, Arial is a typeface consisting of the fonts Arial Regular, Arial Bold, Arial Italic, etc.)
Typestyles are tremendously important in their ability to bring emotion to print. One gets a profoundly different feeling reading a paragraph in, say, Caslon versus that same text in Optima. Subtle variances in typefaces can bring huge changes to how the words are perceived by the reader, and the skilled designer recognizes and exploits that.
Look, for instance, at my masthead at the top of the page. The typeface, which is part of the image, reproduces as it should on your machine because it's not webpage text; it was inserted into the image, then output as part of the JPEG of the gun. I did it that way because I wanted the design elements of that particular type, and there was no way to get it as simple text on the page. The masthead would not look the same, nor convey the same feeling, if it were anything else.
Contrast that with the rest of the text on the page, all of which is generated by your computer's HTML rendering engine. It is sterile, and lacks the subtleties of the image at top. (If you're using a PC, the difference is even more profound.) In short, it just doesn't look as nice!
The beauty of one specific typeface is the subject of a neat feature-length independent film called, simply, "Helvetica." Filmmaker Gary Hustwit looks at this ubiquitous type, where it came from and why it's important in the wider world of graphic design. I know, it sounds dry - but I found it to be engaging as it persuaded me to take a closer look at something that is, quite literally, everywhere. If you're a fan of good design, you should check it out.
It's currently available for online viewing at Google video.
-=[ Grant ]=-
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