Choosing the perfect typeface | Hacker News Reader

Choosing the perfect typeface

cucumbertown.com

76 pointsalagu39 comments

Interesting read, but I still think that people spend faaaaaaaar too much time thinking about typefaces. I just don't think they make as much of an impact on the page as people think they do.

At first glance, I thought the "elite" and "subtle" were both the same face, and likewise with the "informal"/"playful". It's only because they were blown up to a large size that I actually started noticing a tiny difference. Maybe it's just me?

To me, the overall layout of the page is far more important. eg. margins, font-size, line-height, paragraph width, etc.

The exception to my rule, that I might spend more time on, is for big newspaper style headlines. Those I treat more like images/artwork than like text, so they get commensurately more attention devoted to them.

When you're on the page, you might not notice. But when you see a page out of the corner of your eye, you will be able to recognize it if it has a distinctive look. Even if the "distinction" is just in the layout and font.

Thanks for the comments. But the web and the resolutions are changing. The web is the new Print. Take a look at projects like Medium or Flipboard... they all strikes you as impressive not just because of the beautiful layouts but with the intelligent choice of typefaces. Try turning off the webfonts on Medium and see if the impact remain the same? The general design trend moves towards bigger fonts and lavish use of while space on the web. Which means, you need better typefaces to make your designs stand out. With better font rendering engines, its a reality now.

Yes very good point. Particularly with tablets, the use-case they are frequently replacing is that of an old-fashioned print magazine.

I did just test turning off webfonts on Medium and I still honestly can't see any huge problem with my default system typeface. This could possibly be because I have nice defaults, but at the same time, I think the good readability of Medium is far more about the overall style/layout of the page (particularly the decent large font-size), than about any particular typeface.

Example 1 - normal Medium: http://i.imgur.com/D4hYBPy.png

Example 2 - default system fonts: http://i.imgur.com/Jvnuhkm.png

Whilst I can see the difference in typeface, I can't honestly say that I'm experiencing any huge readability changes. Perhaps if I were to switch to a Sans of some sort, but that's not exactly a huge decision that needs to take a lot of time and fuss. By far and away the most important thing that makes this page readable and nice is the font size, closely followed by the line-width.

Good typography is often invisible. I clearly feel far more elegance with the original typefaces:) Its a subtle thing, something that cannot be quantified. Ofcource, content is the king, but in a world where everyone can create good content, how well will you present your content will be key.

I completely agree. A solid typeface evaporates between the page and the retina. Its shapes ease reading and allow the reader's vision to soften around the text and concentrate on the signal rather than the delivery modality. This is especially clear in mathematical typesetting and no discussion of type on a site with hacker in the name would be complete without a nod to the godfather (Donald Knuth) of both digital type and typography (both micro and macro see:

http://books.google.com/books/about/The_elements_of_typograp...

for a discussion of LOD in typography from a master designer)

To properly design his multi-volume set of CS/mathematics books:

http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/taocp.html

Knuth developed an entire software toolchain that spans type face creation (metafont) to the document layout programming language TeX (yup, it's an actual Turing complete language!):

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=67555

He is also responsible for the creation of "literate programming"... All this in his spare time, of course, while he wasn't occupied with his responsibilities as a CS professor at Stanford, teaching, doing research (on things other than digital typography, e.g. the content of his books, combinatorics, etc. (...). Truly an inspiration!

Sure it can be quantified using the same instruments growth hackers use daily. You can measure time on page, click through rate, conversion rate and anything else you wish. I am sure that the difference in the metrics for the A/B test version that use fonts from GP post will be negligeble.

You are wrong.

Even if you cannot readily quantify the difference between, say, Roboto and Source Sans, the difference is there and your perception of either is different. The difference might be slight, but it is sufficient to skew your "2 second" impression in the wrong (or the right) direction. For example, even though Roboto and SS are almost the same typeface, Roboto in regular weight renders much heavier than Source Sans, so if you are to use for a product that is meant to exude lightness and airness, it would work worse than if you were to use SS.

Things like overall feel and the "rhythm" of a typeface take an effort to notice, quantify and rationalize, but they are of an UTMOST perceptive importance. Ever noticed the quirky lowercase "a" in Proxima Nova? Ever noticed how that "a" just steals the show if it appears in a sizes larger than 16px? No? Just pay closer attention next time ;) The same goes for HF&J's Whitney - it looks like just another sans-serif font on the surface, but it just feels friendlier. Try and quantify that (Kotaku uses it, go check it out).

First impression is hugely important and a typeface choice plays a very big part in it. Don't make a mistake of underestimating it.

Has that actually been studied? I mean, is there a quantifiable "2 second impression" that can be measured as different between Roboto and Source Sans? I see this kind of argument made all the time by afficionados of some aesthetic or another (microbrew fans, car nuts, etc...) and invariably the science ends up showing that e.g. wine quality can't be measured objectively at all.

My point here isn't (ahem) "You are wrong.", but more that I think you need to get some perspective about the distinction between strongly held opinion and objective fact.

Yep, there is quite a problem with that. I've recently was looking for proof that Golden Ratio aesthetical qualities are indeed the global optima for at least some categories of objects. I've found nothing.

The Golden Radio is numerological nonsense. There is no evidence supporting some inherit beauty of the Golden Ratio.

There's at least one published study with a very large sampling base. I know because I was as skeptical as you are, then I saw the study mentioned in some design book, looked it up and it did in fact exist. I'll try and find the name, but I'm not sure if I still got the book where it was mentioned.

It would be interesting if someone set up a test similar to Harvard's Implicit Association Test to see if this is true.

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/user/agg/blindspot/tab...

Perhaps. But speaking as a person from a physics background, a difference you can't quantify is a difference that may as well not exist...

I went back and checked the Medium website with a handful of different typefaces on the body text, and whilst I could tell a large difference in readability between the default (ff-tisa-web-pro?) and my systems DejaVu Sans, I honestly couldn't tell the difference the default and Georgia (serif) (screenshots in another comment below).

Which brings me back to my point, that the typeface is highly overrated in importance on a page. The choice of font-size, Sans/Serif, line-height/width, etc. all play a far more important role when it comes to readability.

I will admit that I do come from a strong science/programming background, so sometimes the more arty, design side of things escape me!

Very interesting read ! Thanks a lot.

Right now, I'm trying to learn a few things about webdesign, and I have spent some time on typography yet. However, I know a few basics now, a few things about typography history, but I have never been able to find tutorials about the "why should I use this typeface or this other one there". It's like everybody is able to speak about typography theory but not about practice and thinking.

Someone knows where I can find other articles about practice ? Thanks !

Precisely the reason for attempting to chronicle the journey. Thanks for your interest. Its not very common to come across documentation of subtle aspects of design decisions like type choices.

Font selection is definitely more of an art than a science, and because of this trying to apply the theory of font selection to actual practice is difficult!

Here is a Smashing Mag article that might be helpful: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/12/14/what-font-should-...

My personal favorite is Mike Butterick's Practical Typography. He's a programmer, typographer, and lawyer and the book is entirely web based. They're static pages generated by code he wrote in Racket, a language in the Lisp family.

For a quick introduction check out a small section of the book: Typography in Ten Minutes http://practicaltypography.com/typography-in-ten-minutes.htm...

The book in full: http://practicaltypography.com/

+1 vote for Practical Typography. It's simple and straightforward, and it's oriented toward the average person rather than professional designers. And since it's available in full on the web, you don't have to pay anything to start reading it.

Practical Typography is excellent. Excellent. I think he makes some hyperbolic statements at times, but Butterick as a whole is very accessible.

The only annoyance was ignoring Butterick's plugs for his personal typefaces.

I was very happy to buy a copy of his typography for lawyers book for a friend as recompense for this resource.

I was actually okay with the plugs for his own typefaces. Since the book was free, I thought it was fair that he suggest people buy his typefaces to pay for the free product especially since many will be taking his advice to create products that are intended to make money.

But yes, an absolutely accessible and excellent resource. I've been sending to links to various pages and chapters to my friends in the hopes that they'll choose better typefaces after reading.

The eye is a creature of habit. Bad typography helps people read your copy, while bad typography prevents them from doing so. This is it.

Here's a good example. Why are headlines in all caps hard to read? Because they have no ascenders or descenders to help you read words and thus you have to read the headline letter by letter. You should never superimpose your headline on an image because that makes it hard to read.

I really wish I could learn to analyze typefaces better, like the author. When evaluating a typeface for my projects, I usually just eyeball it, never spending more than a few minutes. I hadn't really thought of thinking about the target audience instead of just a font that simply matches the design.

There are some great tips in there that I imagine would help one pick a fitting typeface for most projects.

All that time, thought and work and they ended up choosing Freight Micro?

http://www.cucumbertown.com/craft/wp-content/uploads/2013/10...

Look at that 'a' and the 's' (among other assorted ugliness)... ugh!

Nice read, but I'm left with some questions. Thisis a website where one can find recepies and read those with the instructions while you're cooking if I'm correct. If so, I'd love to hear if the author actually studied some users in their kitchen while cooking a new recipe and using these new fonts.

We did. Infact the specimen sheets were tested with random users in their cooking environment and the reading patterns were analysed. We noticed that line heights needs to be liberal and open counter letter forms fare better in such scenarios. Again, these are pure observation based conclusions and the same fonts when tested with improved type settings have been reviewed well by the users.

Thank you! Perhaps you could add it to the blog post? A lot of (print)designers basically never test anything. ;-)

How big was your sampling group?

Because what you wrote is exactly what I would've written based on common typographical sense and after sticking an iPad under my wife's nose a couple of times while she was cooking. In other words what you wrote looks made up.

Ofcource i cant claim that the sampling group was big enough for us to make a generic judgement. But for the record, we had 10 users testing it in realtime cooking environments and several others we follow closely at our curated community at facebook. What you claim as common typographic sense is not common to everyone, even in the world of design. People follow patterns and those patterns may or may not work for you in your projects. Assumptions are one thing, but validation is another. In a world where everything needs a reasoning, some process is required for answering questions like why this or why not that..

The author runs Fontli [1], a community dedicated to typeface. I am he’ll must have researched the subjects

[1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fontli/id506650372

Typefaces are meaningless.

Now that I have your attention I'll blow your mind: A good typeface on a bad site does nothing but polish the turd. Designers that obsess over typefaces also generally give equal care to spacing and layout that when all put together makes for a great site.

Flipboard would never have chosen Comic Sans as a font and people that pushed Helvetica Neue would never use dancing chipmunk gifs in their layout.

True, you should not think of your redesign/design thinking about type. That will be a disaster. But somewhere along the way you need to start looking into the options available and the personality you want to deliver though your designs.

Psst! I never get people's hatred for comic sans..its a typeface designed for a purpose. Now its not anyones mistake that Microsoft started packaging it with the OS and the HR departments of the corporate world thought of it as cool to use to be friendly in communication:P

It's a low hanging fruit. That and it's also immediately recognizable so you are immediately ready to critique everything else.

What you're really saying is that typefaces are not meaningless, but using the right one for the job is simply part of good visual design.

Why can't you just A/B test 50 different typefaces and measure which one best produces the user behavior that you're after?

Take the subjectivity out of it.

A/B testing is great when the value you're trying to optimize can be easily measured, such as short-term conversion rate. If your goal is "users should think the site is aesthetically pleasing", that's going to be a hard one to monitor.

But if you're running a business, that's not necessarily going to be your end goal. You want users to "think the site is aesthetically pleasing" because those pleased users [convert more / are more engaged / view more ads], whatever your key metric is. And those are typically easy to measure.

There are far more variables here to measure. First of all what constitutes that fifty you are thinking of rolling out? Lets say you arrive at it and what's next? For an engaged user the AB testing can measure up as you can define clear set of tasks and desired outcomes. But as i stated above, good type often goes invisible. People engage with the content and the not the,medium to tell you anything tangible. One cannot take away the subjectivity from the process when there is not anything tangible to measure.

You're going to need a massive amount of traffic to get statistically significant results from 50 different choices.

I do like the idea of using A/B testing to double-check your designer's decisions, though.

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