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From: jqj@duff.uoregon.edu (JQ Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.org.acm
Subject: Re: New format of CACM
Message-ID: <1991May13.185527.29826@ns.uoregon.edu>
Date: 13 May 91 18:55:27 GMT
References: <91May4.114925edt.2077@ois.db.toronto.edu> <VLADIMIR.91May12204407@prosper.Eng.Sun.COM>
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Although I've been as disappointed as most of the posters here in the "new" CACM format, I must admit that it seems to be getting better.  I
spent some time today looking through the May 1991 issue, and found much less in the layout and typography to offend me than heretofore.  The
single biggest problem in the past couple of years has been lack of
consistency; I think the designers might (?) finally be getting their
style guides under control.

There are still lots of typographic problems, though at least most of
the body text and examples in the text are now readable.  Among the
things I still don't like:
1/ table of contents
2/ that ugly heavy serifed title font (e.g. "ACM FORUM" on page 21)
3/ the setting of the beginnings of articles in single-column bold with
   tan leading lines (e.g. p. 35).  The tan lines make the text totally
   unreadable.
4/ that strange fixed-pitch font that is used for subtitles and authors
  (pp. 34, 35).  Icould live with that font if it were the only
  typographic infelicity
5/ the various different fonts used for quotations extracted from the
   text.  Compare p. 28, p. 96, and p. 99.  A single readable font in a
   size only a couple of points larger than the body size should be used
   throughout for these sorts of things.
6/ variation in heading styles.  Must greater consistency is desirable.
   Why are section headings in Inside Risks (p. 128) different from those
   in most of the articles?
7/ the wierd way some text is set (e.g. the intro to the Software
   Engineering special issue pp. 32-33).  I can understand wanting this
   to look different from the articles, but it's too different, and using
   dingbats instead of paragraph breaks is unreadable.

Bottom line is that I still tend to file unread my CACMs when they arrive
(because the new format is too unpleasant to look at), but I'm willing to
leaf through a few more issues in hopes that it is improving.

-- 
JQ Johnson
Director of Network Services		Internet: jqj@oregon.uoregon.edu
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