The Soul of a Typeface | Hacker News Reader

The Soul of a Typeface

fadeyev.net

22 pointsmgunes6 comments

I'm such a closet typography geek. I'll pretty much upvote any HN post having to do with analyzing fonts. The "depth" of the art and science of typography has always fascinated me. For example when I learned that TrueType etc... actually had, effectively, a built in scripting language where typeface-specific code ran during rendering I was blown away.

Stylistically I tend to prefer sans-serif fonts for my own work. So the font the author used for his example does not directly appeal for me. I appreciate it (like I appreciate a well put together Harley Davidson Chopper, but would never, in 1000 years own one). I have an odd love of mono-spaced, sans-serif fonts in particular. Consolas speaks to me and I'm always seeking out new fonts for my console & editor. Heh.

Thanks for this post.

I'm very fond of typography, but I don't know all that much about it. Is there a name for the style of fonts like Elena? As soon as I saw the sample I was struck by the similarities to Minion, which has to be my favourite serif font (though I do prefer some aspects of Elena).

Not an expert in typography so I may be wrong, but I'd say it's a modern take on Humanist (also known as Venetian), one of the earliest Roman typeface styles. Here's a good article about this style: http://ilovetypography.com/2007/11/06/type-terminology-human.... I'm not sure if it can be classified as such though because it is built to work well on the screen and so has a lot of straight lines, closer to Transitional typefaces like Times New Roman, but even though the overall design is very modern, the feel of it seems to me closer to the Humanist typefaces. For example, the bar on the 'e' is sloping a tiny bit upwards, which is a distinctive characteristic of Humanist typefaces.

It's moments like these that I feel small in regards to humanities. Thank you, Sir.

http://www.markbernstein.org/Mar12/TheSympathyOfThings.html

Lars Spuybroek's book The Sympathy of Things explores possible links between Ruskin's views and modern digital production. I'm finding it hard reading (maths science background myself) but it is making me think in new areas.

Letter Spirit, the soul of the new machine's typefaces: http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/farg/mcgrawg/lspirit.html

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