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Perfect Typography
Posted by matha_standun in
14 Oct 2003 — 4:08pm
14 Oct 2003 — 4:08pm
I was talking about athletics with a friend recently and how one day there would have to be an unbeatable world record - no furter improvement possible.
In terms of readability in typography, is a similar limit conceivable? What would happen if we reached that limit? Would we even know?
Matha.
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14 Oct 2003 — 5:10pm
So you haven't heard about the Font Sprint yet?
Personally I'd like to see a Punchcutting Race next time, resulting in an Open Type font of course
Frank
14 Oct 2003 — 8:29pm
How could there be an "unbeatable" record in athletics? For one thing, mutation still happens.
Readability: It's a dynamic thing (even if you took some "average" of all readers), and familiarity does play a role. In my Alphabet Reform work I arrived at the conclusion that the degree to which an alphabet (nevermind a font, which is an instance of an alphabet) is optimal depends on the current state of the reader. What I mean for example is that an "e" with a flat bottom might improve readability optimally at this time (by pushing the boundary just the right amount), but once people are totally comfortable with that structure the next step in optimization might be to give the "e" a descender.
This is hard to explain.
hhp
14 Oct 2003 — 11:38pm
"....no designer can foresee the inner logic of all possible texts and languages, nor all the other uses to which type is rightly put.
"...Actually, working with type is an earthly task......never-ending landscape that is otherwise too far away to see."
robert bringhurst, the elements of typographic style, p.334
15 Oct 2003 — 12:57am
Hrant is right, legibility now isn't the same as it was in 1746, whereas minutes and seconds are.
(I don't beleive the unbeatable athletics record either, evolution will sort it out.)
15 Oct 2003 — 1:32am
Building products for the semi illiterate with low attention spans seems a little shallow, perhaps!
Gerald Giampa
Lanston Type Company
15 Oct 2003 — 5:02am
don't beleive the unbeatable athletics record either...
Drugs and implants maybe, or changing the rules all the time like in football.
I don't think evolution is too worried about 100m sprints, though.
M
15 Oct 2003 — 5:08am
But wouldn't it be cool if it was? sitting at home, trying to figure out how to make people run faster.
There's always genetic engineering, it's going to be fun/scary to watch the spandex-clad sports-mutants
15 Oct 2003 — 7:50am
There was an article/story in Omni magazine a long time ago about "custom" humans for athletics. Like the Soviet boxer had his brain in his butt.
hhp
15 Oct 2003 — 4:30pm
I miss Omni :sigh: Stupid morons made the jump to the internet and immediately killed the magazine, thus killing themselves in the process.