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On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 1:35 PM, Chris Morton <salt -dot- morton -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> Just set everything in comic sans.
> Steadmanesque<http://www.fonts4free.net/steadmanesque-font.html>is
> another great choice. ;<)
>
> > Chris
>
> On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 10:03 AM, Lynne Wright
> <Lynne -dot- Wright -at- tiburoninc -dot- com>wrote:
>
> > Ok. Fred.
> >
> > You have a point; it was a broad generalization...
> >
> > ....which I think is appropriate, given this venue.
> >
> > If you want to get into the variations within typefaces, across different
> > weights, etc etc.; well, that really IS fodder for a full course. But I
> > don't think that level of knowledge is required for your average tech
> > writer putting together a design template.
> >
> > Let's just agree that script and novelty fonts are to be avoided, at all
> > costs, in life in general.
> >
> >
> > From: Fred Ridder [mailto:docudoc -at- hotmail -dot- com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2012 12:52 PM
> > To: Lynne Wright; gps03 -at- health -dot- state -dot- ny -dot- us; becca -at- di -dot- org
> > Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> > Subject: RE: document design: I don't know what I don't know
> >
> > Lynne Write wrote:
> >
> > > The fundamentals of which fonts are most readable on-screen and/vs in
> > print are pretty basic (hint: non-serif faces look more modern and
> display
> > better at all resolutions because the stroke width of the letter
> components
> > don't vary from thin to thicker as they do in serif fonts)
> >
> > I'm sorry, but I think what you have stated is incorrect unless I'm
> > misreading it. Were you saying that sans-serif faces don't have strokes
> > that get as thin as serif faces? That I can agree with as a broad
> > generalization (although there are some obvious exceptions). But what you
> > seemed to be saying is that sans-serif faces don't vary the strike width,
> > and that I have to disagree with.
> >
> > If you look closely at the most commonly used sans-serif faces you'll see
> > some variation in the stroke widths. Even Helvetica, which is often cited
> > as a no-contrast face (meaning that there is no variation in the width of
> > the main strokes that form the letters) has some narrowing of the rounded
> > strokes where the bowls of lower-case letters like d, p, and q, and the
> > shoulders of letters like m, n, and r join the vertical strokes.
> >
> > And on the other hand, there are some slab-serif typefaces (Courier being
> > the most common example) that are true monoweight designs with no
> variation
> > at all in stroke width
> >
> > As far as readability goes, it is true that typefaces with extreme
> > contrast (e.g., Bodoni) can be fatiguing to read. It is also true that
> > some faces with very low contrast can be hard to read, but in many cases
> > that appears to be due to other factors (e.g., extremely geometrical
> > letterforms) in addition to the lack of contrast. Readability studies of
> > sans-serif vs. serif have been inconclusive, but there does appear to be
> > some cultural and/or familiarity effect involved with European readers
> > seeming to prefer sans-serif slightly and North American readers seeming
> to
> > prefer serif faces slightly, but even this seems to be changing as people
> > spend more time reading hand-held devices, which typically use sans-serif
> > faces.
> >
> > -Fred Ridder
> >
> >
> >
> >
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