Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site arthur.purdue.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!purdue!sbm From: sbm@purdue.UUCP (Steven B. Munson) Newsgroups: net.micro.mac Subject: Re: Boston font Message-ID: <1087@arthur.purdue.UUCP> Date: Sat, 16-Nov-85 15:00:41 EST Article-I.D.: arthur.1087 Posted: Sat Nov 16 15:00:41 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 19-Nov-85 04:01:31 EST References: <480@harvard.ARPA> Distribution: net Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University Lines: 95 Summary: Here are some rules for readability. There was an article in the November MacWorld about a small company co-headed by a guy named Charles Bigelow that works in typeface design. Bigelow is working in digital typeface design (for computer screens and laser printers), and made some interesting comments about rules for readability and Macintosh fonts. Here is the interesting part of the article, copied without permission (I hope I don't get arrested for this). I deleted the references to figures (sorry I can't reproduce those for you, though) and the account of Bigelow's life history until 1982. MacWorld, November 1985, pp. 122-24: In the digital room [at Bigelow & Holmes, the above-mentioned company], two Bigelow and Holmes typefaces--Pellucida and Lucida-- have been digitized for computers. Pellucida is designed for computer screens and has already been released for DEC's VAXstation 100, a bit-mapped display workstation used with VAX minicomputers for programming and engineering applications. Bigelow and his colleagues are now adapting the typeface to the Macintosh screen. Lucida is the counterpart of Pellucida and is the first font family designed especially for laser printers. Lucida is now available for the Imagen series of laser printers, but Bigelow says it could be implemented on Apple's LaserWriter or the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet. According to Bigelow, "The key to designing digital fonts is to adhere to the principles of readability found in traditional typeface designs while tuning the details and features of the design to the digital medium." Bigelow explains that Macintosh fonts are versions of traditional typefaces that were originally designed for typesetting equipment with 1200-plus dots per inch of resolution. But much of what is typed into computers never reaches high-resolution printers, and the quality of such fonts falls short on computer screens, which have much lower resolutions. The Macintosh screen, for example, has the best resolution of nearly any personal computer but produces only 72 dots per inch. Because of the low screen resolution, fonts are plagued by subtle flaws in characters caused by incomplete reproduction of pixels, spaces between letters that cave in, and slight alterations in consistency and harmony between the height and width of each character. Those problems make reading text on the screen difficult and can even cause eyestrain. Bigelow notes that the tendency has been to minimize the stair-stepping effect, or jaggies, of digital typefaces at the expense of altering the underlying shape of the characters [as with the Chicago font]. "With that approach, you end up with a face that doesn't follow the traditional design principles because, based on studies of the human visual system, shape recognition is more crucial for readability than eliminating the jaggies," Bigelow says. Another characteristic of traditional typefaces is contrast within characters, meaning the vertical strokes are thicker than the horizontal strokes. Geneva, for example, is a simple sans serif typeface, and the underlying shape of the characters is clear. However, Geneva lacks contrast; every character in 12-point plain text is 1 pixel wide. As a result, Geneva's texture is insubstantial. Text doesn't automatically flow past your eye as do high-quality typefaces that follow established design principles. Pellucida, on the other hand, preserves the contrast found in traditional typefaces. Pellucida in 12-point is 2 pixels wide vertically and 1 pixel wide horizontally. Pellucida also has simple serifs, but its designers didn't attempt to render the more delicate wedge-shaped serif of an analog typeface like Times Roman. New York, on the other hand, looks too much like a traditional serif typeface. Because the digital medium makes it difficult to render serifs gracefully, the serifs of New York characters appear somewhat crude. Who said MacWorld never has interesting articles? Some interesting notes: I have always known that I didn't really like Geneva very much, but I didn't know there was a "scientific" reason why; also, the comment about serifs explains why the Boston font is so appealing--it has simple (square) serifs, imitating the look of a typewriter. I don't think the fact that all the strokes are the same width (one pixel wide) detracts from its look, because many letter-quality printers have the same characteristic. This may explain why so many said it gave the ImageWriter letter-quality output; even though you can still see the dots if you look very closely, the letters are shaped like those of a daisy-wheel printer. Just one other thing--I was surprised to see that, even though Pellucida follows all the rules of readability (at least those mentioned in the article; I'm no expert), I consider it to be kind of ugly-looking. I guess there is a difference between readability and good looks. I would welcome further comments; I find this intriguing after taking for granted the fonts I see every day. Steve Munson sbm@Purdue.EDU sbm@Purdue.CSNET