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Typography in Ten Minutes

13 points| lambrospetrou | 1 year ago |practicaltypography.com

10 comments

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__rito__|1 year ago

> ignore the fonts already loaded on your computer and the free fonts that inundate the internet. Instead, buy a professional font

Don't agree with this at all. There are many great free fonts. Cascadia Code, Ubuntu Sans, IBM Plex, Fira Mono, etc. are great enough fonts that are free.

nluken|1 year ago

Judging from the author's other assertions, this suggestion probably comes from a place of not limiting yourself to system fonts given that they're so prevalent. I can't say I agree either, and would add that some of the "free fonts that inundate the internet" are professionally designed by well-respected foundries.

That said, perhaps we should view these "rules" as laying a foundation for people who know nothing. I see the equivalent in fashion all the time, where breaking the standard set of fashion "rules" without knowing them in the first place can lead to disaster. Only by internalizing the rules can you then subvert them successfully.

nuancebydefault|1 year ago

> never choose Times New Roman or Arial, as those fonts are favored only by the apathetic and sloppy.

Its a pity the author doesn't explain why.

For some reason times new roman looks very good printed but is not very well readable on screens. Personally I don't like Arial much. A big no no is the capital i being indistinguishable from the l of lima.

WCSTombs|1 year ago

It's explained elsewhere in the book:

> Fame has a dark side. When Times New Roman appears in a book, document, or advertisement, it connotes apathy. It says, “I submitted to the font of least resistance.” Times New Roman is not a font choice so much as the absence of a font choice, like the blackness of deep space is not a color. To look at Times New Roman is to gaze into the void.

https://practicaltypography.com/times-new-roman-alternatives...

nwroot|1 year ago

That page looks terrible lol

f30e3dfed1c9|1 year ago

Counterpoint: that page looks and reads better than the vast majority of web pages in the world. Admittedly a low bar: most web pages are horrible.

hilbert42|1 year ago

What's wrong with it? I looked fine to me and very readable.