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You are not logged in. [Log In] AppleCentral » Forums » General Discussion » Stan's Lounge » Easily readable, small font?
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#374852 - 08/02/08 06:48 AM Re: Easily readable, small font? [Re: trey]
soulotomy Offline
Funknosticator Emeritus

Registered: 02/25/08
Posts: 657
Loc: Sunnyvale, CA mostly
Yeah, what John said. If it's for print, use a newspaper font. They used to pay typographic designers gazillions for fonts with great legibility at extremely small sizes, to pack in more text per page with decent legibility.<br><br>If it's for monitor resolution, go with Verdana or Arial.<br><br>Ed<br><br>[color:purple]Information isn't a connection - It doesn't stir people</font color=purple><br>
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#374853 - 08/02/08 07:01 AM Re: Easily readable, small font? [Re: John_Lasruk]
soulotomy Offline
Funknosticator Emeritus

Registered: 02/25/08
Posts: 657
Loc: Sunnyvale, CA mostly
Oh yeah, that's right (from the old Swiss Movement and Bauhasian studies): Ragged right for quick next line pickup visual cues, and optimal line lenth = (oops, I forget, I think it was something like 39 character length, including spaces, which does sound quite short, but consider newspaper columnar character lenths?).<br><br>Of course, brilliance neuters rules, such as Lincoln's quaint and verbose Gettyburg Address, which any sane writer would boil down to a few sentences .<br><br>Ed<br><br>[color:purple]Information isn't a connection - It doesn't stir people</font color=purple><br>
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#374854 - 08/02/08 07:29 AM Re: Easily readable, small font? [Re: soulotomy]
keymaker Offline


Registered: 12/14/07
Posts: 6026
<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>They used to pay typographic designers gazillions for fonts with great legibility at extremely small sizes...<p><hr></blockquote><p>I wouldn't recommend Times in the specified conditions... when space is limited and smaller sizes are required a condensed sans serif font would have been a better option because the letter shapes are simpler and in general they are known to be more legible than serifed fonts especially at anything less than 8 points.<br><br>km<br><br>

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#374855 - 08/02/08 11:52 AM Re: Easily readable, small font? [Re: keymaker]
John_Lasruk Offline
Old Fool

Registered: 05/07/07
Posts: 650
Loc: Toronto, Canada
Not that I want to start anything here, but in general, Roman faces are more legible than sans serif. It might seem anti-intuitive, but all that extra detail provides the reader with extra clues to identify words by their shapes, since we don't actually read words letter-by-letter. I stand by my earlier comments.<br><br>Specifically, most condensed sans serif fonts are actually harder than average to read. Try to read a line of Futura Condensed at 7 points. Whoa!<br><br>Laz, OFI[/i][color:green]<br>Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. — Groucho </font color=green>
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#374856 - 08/02/08 12:07 PM Re: Easily readable, small font? [Re: John_Lasruk]
Reboot Offline

Muhahahaha

Registered: 04/22/02
Posts: 15046
Loc: Columbus OH
<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>Not that I want to start anything here, but in general, Roman faces are more legible than sans serif....all that extra detail provides the reader with extra clues to identify words by their shapes<p><hr></blockquote><p>I agree. One thing I've learned after 25 years in the printing industry is it's common knowledge that serif fonts are easier to read.<br><br>------>#1 - JD's Trivia game<br><br>------>#2 - MM-MCF Trivia game
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#374857 - 08/02/08 03:26 PM Re: Easily readable, small font? [Re: John_Lasruk]
Mississauga Offline
Canuckistani

Registered: 04/19/02
Posts: 3352
Loc: Ontario, Canada
"... Roman faces are more legible..."<br><br>... but Greeks girls are prettier! <br><br>- alec -
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#374858 - 08/02/08 03:36 PM Re: Easily readable, small font? [Re: Reboot]
padmavyuha Offline
Trans Tomboy™

Registered: 09/03/03
Posts: 4921
Loc: Dawlish, Deepest Darkest Devon
Ay - the purpose of the serifs on a serif font is to lead the eye along the line, which makes it easier to stay with the meaning of the text when the print is small - I certainly find it harder work reading small-size sans-serif, or anything else involving two s-words with a hyphen, for that matter. My all-time fave is Palatino - I've actually always found Time New/2nd Hand Roman quite hard to read.<br><br>- padmavyuha<br><br>[color:purple]A lopsided man runs best along the little side-hills of success<br>- Frank Moore Colby</font color=purple>
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#374859 - 08/02/08 03:55 PM Re: Easily readable, small font? [Re: padmavyuha]
John_Lasruk Offline
Old Fool

Registered: 05/07/07
Posts: 650
Loc: Toronto, Canada
I agree. Palatino IS a very attractive face. Although it is an old-style font, based on medieval calligraphy, it was designed fairly recently (1950's, I think) by Hermann Zapf, famed typographer. Unfortunately, due to its being included with the basic "free" Postscript fonts, it became overused, or at least used in the wrong places. (The same can be said of Times, Helvetica and Bookman.)<br><br>Laz, OFI[/i][color:green]<br>Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. — Groucho </font color=green>
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#374860 - 08/02/08 04:04 PM Re: Easily readable, small font? [Re: trey]
Clark Offline


Registered: 03/14/08
Posts: 2376
Loc: Massachusetts
Here is a list of some of my favorite fonts.<br>Palatino is my favorite for writing letters.<br>Arial is my favorite web site font.<br>John Lasruk and Soulotomy say that you can't go wrong with newspaper fonts.<br>The top ten most used newspaper fonts are Poynter, Franklin Gothic, Helvetica, Utopia, Times, Nimrod, Century Old Style, Interstate, Bureau Grotesque, and Miller.<br>My list includes Helvetica, Century Old Style, and Times Roman.<br><br><br><br>
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#374861 - 08/02/08 04:09 PM Re: Easily readable, small font? [Re: Clark]
yoyo52 Offline
Nothing comes of nothing.

Registered: 05/25/01
Posts: 30520
Loc: PA, USA
I continue to be astonished that no one has even mentioned Comic Sans in all this. Honestly!<br><br><br><br>[color:red]&#63743;</font color=red> [color:orange]&#63743;</font color=orange> [color:yellow]&#63743;</font color=yellow> [color:green]&#63743;</font color=green> [color:blue]&#63743;</font color=blue> [color:purple]&#63743;</font color=purple>
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