Re: Fonts in a new direction
I've been enjoying and learning from the fonts discussion so far, and it brings up a question I've been pondering. What do y'all think of scaleable fonts? I have my own opinions, but I'd like to hear others' first.
Historically, a font wasn't just a design, but also a size; for example, typesetters would talk about 12 point Caslon and 36 point Caslon. The distinction was partly due to the fact that the letters were physically different, but mostly due to the fact that diferent sizes required slightly different designs to look their best.
Scalable fonts blur the distinction between different sizes of fonts in the same family. The worst simply change the size of the font without changing the metrics. I believe that Palatino does this, which is why some typographers suggest that, below 10 points, you should use the similar Aldus as a substitute. However, many of the better quality fonts contain metrics for different sizes. Often,these metrics aren't complete - for example, the same set may be used for 14 through 24 points - but they mitigate the problems with scalable fonts considerably. Then, of course, there are the multiple master fonts, which can include aspects such as optical size, and further improve scalable fonts.
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Fonts in a new direction: From: jrondeau
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