Comments on: Design Critique: Leon Paternoster

By: Striking Web Sites with Font Stacks that Inspire - Inspiration Bit

Striking Web Sites with Font Stacks that Inspire - Inspiration Bit — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:09:48 +0000

[...] on SitePoint where he presented us with 8 Definitive Web Font Stacks. He’s put lots of thought and work into his research, but unfortunately SitePoint has drastically cut down the article, though gave [...]

By: Leon Paternoster — Readability and font sizes

Leon Paternoster — Readability and font sizes — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:59:20 +0000

[...] always assumed that larger font size = more readable, but having read Vivien’s critique of my website, so comments on the iA site and listening to my work colleagues, I’m not so sure. Garamond [...]

By: Simon Pascal Klein

Simon Pascal Klein — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:30:55 +0000

@Vivien: Essentially all the knowledge I have on font hinting is contained in the Wikipedia article on them—I could probably learn a thing or two from it actually. I haven’t done much digital font design so I wouldn’t be the right guy to write about the topic. Someone talented like Jos Buivenga would probably the best chap to approach.

By: Michael Tuck

Michael Tuck — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 02:06:21 +0000

God, color me stupid. I’ve already installed Screengrab. Duh.

By: Vivien

Vivien — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 01:53:58 +0000

not sure about font screenshots, but site screenshots I take with Screengrab add-on for FF, and I usually save my work with fonts as PNG.

By: Vivien

Vivien — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 01:45:56 +0000

…Britney Spears notwithstanding

haha… how true :)

Ok, stay tuned for Georgia-only showcase first, followed up with non-standard fonts.

Leon, perhaps I should mention that some of the sites on my Georgia-only list do rely on other typefaces as well, but for logos or special headings only (saved as images), however all the HTML copy uses strictly Georgia.

Pascal, I would love you to perhaps write an article on ‘hinting tables’? I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else before raising that issue when linking or embedding additional fonts.

By: Michael Tuck

Michael Tuck — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 01:36:40 +0000

Speaking of font screenshots, any suggestions on producing them? My Photoshop skills are right up there with my brain surgery skills; I can get the text strings to appear, but strange and unwanted things soon ensue and the whole thing just becomes an annoyance. I am forced to go find one of the cats to settle me down. Any alternatives?

By: Michael Tuck

Michael Tuck — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:27:43 +0000

>>I may go mad and experiment with Verdana one day…

Settle down there, big fella. :)

Vivien, I would prefer to see the non-standard typeface article first, but that’s just my preference.

Like everything else, @font-face would have its “nine-day wonder” span, where folks throw every font they can think of at us. Things will eventually settle down. Efficiency and sensibility usually win out in the long run, Britney Spears notwithstanding. But it won’t be a pretty period of time. The “good” thing is, we’ll suddenly collect a ton of neato keeno fonts (more than we want, undoubtedly).

However, as long as the font foundries are unable to settle on how to allow @font-face to distribute their fonts without them receiving $$ for them, I don’t see how it’s going to happen.

By: Leon Paternoster

Leon Paternoster — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:16:46 +0000

Maybe a progression from the ’simple’ Georgia-only approach to the more ‘complex’ lots-of-fonts?

I’m intrigued: I can only think of iA as an example of Georgia-only.

By: Simon Pascal Klein

Simon Pascal Klein — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 21:24:50 +0000

I have a feeling my comment was just lost in the tubes somewhere. D’oh.

@Leon: Indeed, and beside the disagreements over the technical implementation of the CSS web fonts module, the ability of link or embed additional fonts raises issues of quality of those fonts. Good hinting in fonts is paramount to good screen legibility, making inconsistent user agent handling of non-integer font-size definitions more problematic—some browser round up, others will round the decimal down whilst others still try to render the type in the defined font at that exact non-integer size. An example would be a designer carelessly linking or embedding a font lacking hinting tables that is set at say, 11.725 pixels.

@Vivien: Propose the one showcasing web-safe fonts first followed by it’s opposite that also features screenshots of the sites with type set in the various fall backs as comparison?