I'll start with Allan Haley's article first:
"It's About Legibility" - Allan Haley
In Allan Haley's article he begins by making two things very clear, there are differences as to what makes a typeface legible versus what makes a typeface readable. Legibility, according to Haley, in a typeface is the ability to distinguish one letter form from another. On the other hand, Readability is the use of that particular typeface and not necessarily its legibility (although it's probably expected that a readable typeface is a legible one).
He goes on to explain that while legibility is all fine and dandy, that is shouldn't always be a typefaces primary goal, but merely a characteristic of the typeface. He explains that if legibility were the only thing we kept in mind while utilizing typefaces then we'd have a rather boring selection of typefaces to choose from.
He continues by explaining three aspects of what makes a typeface legible, highlighting things like large lower-case x-heights, large open counters and restrained stroke-weights. He makes note that while most sans serifs tend to fulfill these desired aspects nicely, serifs too can have these things applied to them and come out legible, giving Nimrod and MT Bembo as examples to his point.
Haley then talks specifically about serifs and weight once again, highlighting the fact that the reason serifs tend to have the most drawbacks is because the serifs change from letter to letter within the typeface depending and that lettering with long serifs or heavy serifs make for less legible type. He says that serifs should be heavy enough to be noticed, but not so heavy that it's all you notice.
He closes the article talking about Transparent type, which I referenced in the beginning of my summary with how a good typeface is legible, but doesn't necessarily have to be boring and without style and then went on to talk about situational typefaces and when to use them.
I wonder if it is possible to make a serif typeface with heavy-weighted serifs without detracting from legibility or by drawing too much attention to itself. Haley mentions that most good serifs have varying weight within their lettering, so would tweaking with that weight help lend a hand to balancing out the serifs themselves?
Also, if legibility is only one aspect to readability, how big of an aspect does legibility play? I've seen some typefaces that I can read clearly with some minor tweaking, but on their defaults isn't quite as nice in terms of legibility. With the ability to play with tracking, kerning and leading, do we need to focus entirely on how legible our fonts are from the bat or can we tweak them in program to be as readable as we want them to be?
It definitely sets a standard as to what to look for in terms of web-fonts that are considered legible and which ones I should look for to try and use for readability.
"Georgia & Verdana: Typefaces designed for screen (finally)" - Daniel Will-Harris
A very old article in which Will-Harris interviews Simon Eranshaw, a typographer at Microsoft in regards to the creation of the Verdana and Georgia typefaces. There's specific questions in regards to the decisions they made in making Verdana and Georgia, as well as inquiries in regards to why they were free typefaces.
I was actually surprised to read in the article that Verdana is a cousin to Tahoma? I don't even precisely know who Matthew Carter is. I probably read of him somewhere in my old type class, but it's been so long I can't remember off the top of my head. That being said, I'll have to look up Bell Centennial and see what it looks like as it was what they used to compare to Verdana.
It's an interesting interview and sheds some light on my next article.
"Matthew Carter" - Wikipedia
This article is a run-down of who Matthew Carter was and what he contributed to the art of Typography. The article runs down through Carter's early educations as an intern at the Joh. Enschedé type foundry, and how he learned punch cutting to go on to make his own semi-bold version of the typface Dante.
He lived through the age where physical media met digital and made his career in many places, such as Crossfield Electronics, Merganthaler Linotype, Bitstream Inc. and Carter & Cone. He's responsible for famous fonts such as the Bell Cenntenial typeface, Verdana and Georgia as well as famous type pieces for publications like Time, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Boston Globe, Wired and Newsweek.
He won numerous awards, his recent being the MacArthur Foundation Fellows.
This is a man I don't recall much about. I'm pretty sure in my initial type class I read some stuff about him, but it was so long ago that I don't remember much. I didn't expect to recognize as many typefaces of Carter's as I did, although I don't know if the list on Wikipedia is just ones he worked on and perfected himself since the article did say he made hundreds of them with the help of others.
Apparently one of his most famous was Bell Cenntenial, but I'd never seen it before. I am more familiar with Verdana, Georgia, Tahoma and Cascade Script. Some of these I think I've only seen listed, but never actually went in to investigate what they were. I'm so used to custom open type faces that I can find anywhere, that I don't even know the "classics". Would I even call them classics?
"Writer's Toolbox" - Visual Writing PDF
The Writer's Toobox portion of the Visual Writing PDF we were to read is basically a guide to various tasks were can do to help our process along, whether it be to create something, figure out the details to a problem, or just to get us to write coherent thoughts.
Many of these little tips and tricks are things I've used before, like Mind Maps. Mind Maps are essentially you starting out with your central idea and branching off from it by connecting bubbles with the first word that comes to mind as you go along. Good mind maps are tons of bubbles and can fill whole pages. I've used it to go from something broad-term into something more specific.
Another one is Concept Maps, very similar to Mind Maps with the main difference being that the lines that connect the bubbles have terms associated with them in regards to what you can do with one to another. Say for instance, I write a bubble that says alcohol and another that says barley, to connect them I would put a line with the phrase "can be derived from" to understand their direct relationship.
There were several more, like Freewriting where you just spout out whatever comes to mind for a set amount of time, either in a general sense or a specified one. Brainwriting is another one, which takes place with the traditional think-tank mentality and consists of each person in the group writing down an idea to whatever the problem is. And there's word lists and outlines.
All of these things are utilizable tools, and the ones I most associate myself with have been Mind Maps, Freewriting and Word Lists. I've never done Brainwriting or Concept Maps, but they both seem like things best set for group environments instead of individual tasks.
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