Comment by tptacek

Comment by tptacek 2 days ago

I don't want to get too deep into this because it doesn't matter to my point (you're also not entitled to eat truffled dishes any more than you're entitled to eat ortolans). But: set a document in one text face or another; it won't much matter at all to the experience of reading it (unless you pick a bad text face). Leave the truffle out of a risotto and you've made a different dish.

The important subtext of this thread is that, when we're talking about functional typesetting, the solutions space is pretty constrained. There aren't that many things you can do with a text face (vs. a display face). And you already have available to you extremely high-quality, well-hinted text faces at a full range of weights.

int_19h a day ago

While we're on this subject, which extremely high-quality, well-hinted text faces that are freely available would you personally recommend to web and app designers?

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davidivadavid 2 days ago

Take any famous wordmark and replace it with a different typeface. You have a different wordmark. Typefaces aren't only used in body text. If you've read Bringhurst and are a typeface nerd, you should know you're arguing in bad faith. (Also generally like your comments, fyi, but you should know not to chime in that way about that topic on HN where the average attitude to anything design related is a mix of contempt and ignorance).

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tptacek 2 days ago

There are plenty of wordmarks that use no pre-designed typeface at all (NASA, Disney, Coca Cola); you're clearly not entitled to the vectors of those marks so you can repurpose them in your own work. Not to mention that most of the greatest wordmarks of all time were designed without any access to per-impression-licensed commercial fonts!
(I do not think it is the case that HN shuns design and I do not think you will be able to support with evience a claim that I'm ignorant of type design or commenting in bad faith).

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- davidivadavid 2 days ago
  
  Correct. And those are the wordmarks I'm not talking about. Let me try it differently: Would you say typeface choice plays no functional role in the branding of companies that do rely on pre-designed typefaces? Vignelli's work would look the same with different fonts? No, you know that's just absurd. Or are we just equivocating on "functional" here? If we're talking about letter forms, certainly looking a certain way is part of their function? And I know you know more than the average guy about type design, which is precisely why I'm confused as to why you would go for that seemingly meta-contrarian take.
  
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  tptacek 2 days ago
  
  It's not a contrarian take. The argument I'm making is simple. If you're doing functional type design, such as setting a book or a magazine article or a user interface, you have a wealth of viable faces available that do not involve per-impression licensing; many are free, some even came installed with your computer. If you're doing logo design, everything is out the window anyways: a wordmark is an aesthetic statement. If you're a designer, and you're designing a mark, and your best idea requires you to license a Monotype font with per-impression licensing, and you don't want to do that, just use your next best idea. That design challenge is really not much different than having your best idea depend on access to NYT Cheltenham, which you can't use at any price. Or, for that matter, the vectors of the FedEx logo.
  I'm not blowing you off. I'm taking your argument seriously. It just doesn't hold.
  
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  KronisLV a day ago
  
  > If you're doing functional type design, such as setting a book or a magazine article or a user interface, you have a wealth of viable faces available that do not involve per-impression licensing; many are free, some even came installed with your computer.
  This is well put and thanks for engaging with the argument in good spirits.
  I imagine that fonts often matter a lot for brand identity and specific use cases (like programming) will also have specific aspects of importance (like ligatures in particular to a lot of folks and being able to tell symbols apart at a glance so IloO0 etc. don’t present issues, but for many use cases some utilitarian “good enough” choice will suffice, because there are a lot of competently made free fonts out there.
  
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  Dylan16807 2 days ago
  
  His argument is about body typefaces, not wordmarks at all, so yes this is talking past based on a different definition of "functional".
  
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