Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!agate!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!humu!uhccux!lee
From: lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.text.desktop
Subject: Re: Typography--Was Re: ventura
Message-ID: <4058@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Date: 3 Jun 89 18:35:27 GMT
References: <1368@lzfme.att.com>
Organization: University of Hawaii
Lines: 29

From article <1368@lzfme.att.com>, by jwi@lzfme.att.com (Jim Winer @ AT&T, Middletown, NJ):
>...
>	4) If you're writing for a European audience, sans serif
>           type is easier to read. In the US, serif is easier. (It
>           depends on what you were brought up on.)
>
>... circuit designers ... they insisted that
>their documents weren't *professional* unless they looked just like
>the other documents they had seen. Isn't it interesting that high
>tech professionals were more interested in conformity of appearance
>than they were in communication of ideas? ...


The principle that what is most legible depends on what you're used
to reading is known, but its application is apparently not understood.
Perhaps excessive concern with the esthetics of design erodes the
ability to make a cogent argument.

I am not schooled in book design, but I really don't see what special
expertise is involved.  I designed and printed one book and helped with
another, using TeX in both cases.  I just looked at some examples as
models for the first version, then screwed around with the formatting
parameters until it looked nice.  Being impressed with the advice
in the TeXbook that one should have the design done by a professional,
I took my drafts to the publisher and got comments and advice, which,
however, turned out to be quite trivial.  I doubt that book design
is even much of a craft, much less a science (as some seem to be
contending).
			Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu