[thelist] [penalty tip] for getting OT (sans vs. serif)

deke web at master.gen.in.us
Sat Feb 23 23:47:00 CST 2002


On 23 Feb 2002 at 17:41, Ed McCarroll posted a message which said:

> > sans serif fonts are easier to read on a computer screen.

> I've also hear that there is a generational aspect to this, because sans
> serif fonts have gained popularity only in recent decades.  Thus older
> folks are more used to serif fonts, and are thus likely to find them
> easier to read, and vice versa.

Uh, no.

Serif fonts actually started appearing in the late 1700s and early
1800s, but they became popular in the 1920s.  Futura, for instance, was
an instant hit when it was introduced in 1928.

Serifs are pretty nigh mandatory in stone-cutting letters. Nobody
really cares much about how fast an engraved inscription can be parsed,
though. With hand-set type, a serif had the benefit of resisting damage
to the type; a thin stroke ending with a serif could easily be broken
as you sorted type into a job case.

With linecasters, though, there was less economic reason to use serifs,
but cast lines of type *could* get damaged - and serif type was
considered to have a "finished" appearance.

With the introduction of cold type, the strength of type became
immaterial, and you'd have thought that especially with
phototypesetting (as opposed to justowriters, etc.), clean and modern-
looking sans-serif would have been the natural choice.  In display
sizes, it was - but for body type, it turned out to be unacceptable.
The serifs make reading the type much easier, probably for the same
reason why mixed-case is much easier to read - there is greater
difference between the letters, visually.

That doesn't hold true for the computer screen because the resolution
is so poor. While printers will lay down 1440 dots per *inch* on paper,
most computer screens don't even have that much resolution for the
entire width of the screen. Even sans typefaces perform poorly on the
screen, which is why such faces as Ariel were developed.

When we have decent hardware, designing for computer screens will
probably be dominated by serif faces, for greater readability. Until
then, we make do.

deke




*Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche
-- a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance,
my grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last one off
the fence." I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was
undoubtedly true. --
                       Solomon Short




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