What font has been more tested for quick pass-through of data than the default system fonts? To me, this simply screams "This is the main body. You can find your information here"
No. System fonts have completely different reasons for existing than fonts you would want to use to communicate with the public. System fonts were initially created for legibility at certain screen resolutions, for dot-matrix printers, etc.
But it's worse than that. What I'm trying to explain is that every typeface, even the most innocuous one gives subtle, subconscious cues to the readers. Every font. The associations can range from some childhood Disney movie to a font you saw at a hospital while you were having a really serious medical problem. But after 30 years of everyone on earth looking at system fonts, readers now get the cue when they see a system font that they are looking at a shitty MS Word document their boss just pinned to the felt board. Or else they assume the author did not bother or did not have the skill to make it look good.
I'm a writer. I've written 6 novels. I love words and ideas, unencumbered by visuals. I've written at least 500k LoC on in my life, maybe double that, I don't know. That's all pure thought and logic. So I get the agitation: All I want to get across to you, my reader, my employer, is the information, my distilled ideas. That's all that's important. Read it or don't, I don't care, it's good and the logic works.
I'm also trained as a designer. My first several jobs were in ad agencies, since I was 14 years old as an intern. How will people subconsciously interpret the ancillary visual aspects of this is something I learned early on: what will they construe? Because bad design can prejudice someone against a great piece of writing, and vice-versa.
No visual thing you can make has zero cultural reference; everything you make that other people will see drags some bundle of pre-understood tropes into it. You can't make one without referencing some aspect of culture that affected you. The job of a designer - what makes a designer different from someone who just has aesthetic chops and can tell if a web page looks good - what constitutes the black arts of design - is to know every single cultural trope you are dragging in front of the customer's target audience and to understand how it will psychologically affect their state while they read the content, so you know how to trigger certain emotional resonances in them while they absorb the information the client is trying to get across.
That's what "giving a shit" means in terms of communicating visually.
Observe how there's no custom font, no weird font, and no "associations with some childhood Disney movie" to be found on a page seen and used by 2+ billions of users daily.
Could you recommend any good books, video series, blogs, or other training for those that who need to understand fonts at your level professionally? Or maybe you could write one?
I know someone that is trying to break into this space but doesn’t have the past experience, and it’s almost impossible to catch up. I’d love to provide them with a resource.
In defense of Comic Sans, it’s not just for realtor pages. It can be effective for local, casual communication by appearing friendly and approachable. If I saw a flyer pinned to a corkboard advertising a fish and chips special in Comic Sans in a seaside town, my mouth would be watering, because I’d know that’s a mom and pop place that focuses more on the food and taking care of people than the marketing.
noduerme|4 months ago
But it's worse than that. What I'm trying to explain is that every typeface, even the most innocuous one gives subtle, subconscious cues to the readers. Every font. The associations can range from some childhood Disney movie to a font you saw at a hospital while you were having a really serious medical problem. But after 30 years of everyone on earth looking at system fonts, readers now get the cue when they see a system font that they are looking at a shitty MS Word document their boss just pinned to the felt board. Or else they assume the author did not bother or did not have the skill to make it look good.
I'm a writer. I've written 6 novels. I love words and ideas, unencumbered by visuals. I've written at least 500k LoC on in my life, maybe double that, I don't know. That's all pure thought and logic. So I get the agitation: All I want to get across to you, my reader, my employer, is the information, my distilled ideas. That's all that's important. Read it or don't, I don't care, it's good and the logic works.
I'm also trained as a designer. My first several jobs were in ad agencies, since I was 14 years old as an intern. How will people subconsciously interpret the ancillary visual aspects of this is something I learned early on: what will they construe? Because bad design can prejudice someone against a great piece of writing, and vice-versa.
No visual thing you can make has zero cultural reference; everything you make that other people will see drags some bundle of pre-understood tropes into it. You can't make one without referencing some aspect of culture that affected you. The job of a designer - what makes a designer different from someone who just has aesthetic chops and can tell if a web page looks good - what constitutes the black arts of design - is to know every single cultural trope you are dragging in front of the customer's target audience and to understand how it will psychologically affect their state while they read the content, so you know how to trigger certain emotional resonances in them while they absorb the information the client is trying to get across.
That's what "giving a shit" means in terms of communicating visually.
vntok|4 months ago
So here are the fonts of the Facebook posts listed on a Facebook user's wall:
> Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif
> system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif
Observe how there's no custom font, no weird font, and no "associations with some childhood Disney movie" to be found on a page seen and used by 2+ billions of users daily.
JimDabell|4 months ago
I think you’ve gotten mixed up between the system-ui font and the browser default font.
The system-ui font is modern. It was only added to CSS about ten years ago. It’s not Times New Roman. It wasn’t designed for dot matrix printers.
Everybody else here is talking about something that fits in with the rest of the system. You seem to be talking about something from the early 90s.
asdboch|4 months ago
I know someone that is trying to break into this space but doesn’t have the past experience, and it’s almost impossible to catch up. I’d love to provide them with a resource.
In defense of Comic Sans, it’s not just for realtor pages. It can be effective for local, casual communication by appearing friendly and approachable. If I saw a flyer pinned to a corkboard advertising a fish and chips special in Comic Sans in a seaside town, my mouth would be watering, because I’d know that’s a mom and pop place that focuses more on the food and taking care of people than the marketing.