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Web browser fonts, anti/aliased, readability, and attitude

21 Apr 2004 by Jason Fried

Design kings Jim, Todd, Jeffrey, Gabe, and Craig discuss type/font display in web browsers and what’s next.

6 comments so far (Post a Comment)

22 Apr 2004 | Mark said...

Don't you mean attitude?

22 Apr 2004 | CM Harrington said...

Actually, I didn't find the article/interview all that insightful. "Anti-aliased fonts rock." pretty much sums it up. Well, there was one dissenting opinion, Craig Kroeger, who whinged on the fact that you can't easily turn of Anti-aliasing on the mac. Of course, he designs small bitmapped fonts for a living, so his position was pretty obvious.

"What is wrong is when the choice is no longer left to the individual. When Apple (remember when they were for individuality?) decides that anti-aliased text is my only choice, thats where I have a problem. Just as having limited type selection is bad for designers and viewers alike, having no choice in how you view that text is just as bad, if not worse. Screen viewing will never be, and should never be, like reading printed text."

Considering that most people dont have the choice of turning on AA, I don't think you can pin the blame on Apple for that one. Why shouldn't text on screen be as easy to read as the printed word? Must I endure eyestrain until I die? Should monitor technology not continue to move forward leading to brighter, denser screens?

Another interesting thing is that everyone mentioned Macromedia Flash in their responses. Flash is a good tool, but I do see the irony of a whole bunch of web designers who advocate standards and accessibility going on about text in Flash.

I did happen to like Todd Dominey and Jeffrey Zeldman's responses. As much as we want to embrace web standards and modern browsers, Microsoft effectively stagnating their browser (unless you buy their new OS... in 3 years time), is halting any massive uptake on advanced CSS technique. Unfortunately there isn't much to do about that.

Apologies for the downer. I just re-read this, and it's a bit more depressing than my usual posts. Oh well, at least my new 12" powerbook has shipped!!

22 Apr 2004 | Tim said...

Ironically, I had to bump up the font size to read the article. Maybe i'm just getting old...or maybe it's just my settings.

27 Apr 2004 | Bryan said...

"Fonts" are overrated. Give me simple type that I can read and I'm happy. The only people who care about different faces are designers.

30 Jan 2005 | compatelius said...

bocigalingus must be something funny.

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