Typography

[Scott5114]

You know what Futura reminds me of?



Of course it's not the same typeface, but you could see the resemblance. And when they released the subway font for computers, the lowercase (which previously didn't exist) was based on Futura.

Futura was invented around the same time period (early 20th century) as these fonts, so they have a common heritage. They are all geometric sans-serif fonts. Another one that is considerably newer, but of the same style, is Gotham, which has become fairly popular in the last six years or so, after being the primary typeface for the 2008 Obama campaign. Gotham was intended to evoke the feel of typography on New York City public works buildings of that era.

I'm in the practice of law and I'm a bit of a stickler for the typography in my written work product to the extent court rules allow for it. The Virginia Supreme Court has a bizarre rule requiring submissions be in either Courier, Arial, or Verdana and no other font, so there's not much you can do there (you use Arial if you have much sense). Otherwise, for printed stuff like briefing and the like I'm partial to a font called Equity published by Matthew Butterick, who is the author of an excellent book called Typography for Lawyers (which, despite the name, is an excellent volume for anyone who does a lot of written work; he even uses a highway sign as an example of the importance of typography at one point).

Of the three choices there, I'd probably go for Verdana. It's probably the most attractive of the three, and is designed to be equally good on screen or paper. As for Equity:



Hot damn, that's a nice font. Too bad it costs $119!

An ancient piece of abandonware called Softy has been my tool of choice.  It's very primitive, maybe a step and a half above authoring a TTF file directly in a hex editor.  I coded a custom utility for calculating intersections and performing other operations on quadratic Bézier curves to assist in my outline editing.  For hinting work (which is not present in any of my DaFont.com offerings) I use a beta version of TTHMachine, which is similarly primitive.

Potential future font projects which involve drafting letterforms in CAD will probably be coded as SVG fonts using Wordpad and some custom software I write to help automate the translation, and then automated conversion to other formats using tools found on the Internet.

I want to say I've toyed around with Softy before but don't remember it that well. You might consider trying Fontforge, which is probably a step up from that, but still free. As for SVG fonts, Inkscape has some sort of support for them, but I don't know to what extent.

As for Courier, nobody should be using it. Nobody should be using monospaced fonts in general other than programmers, since monospaced fonts are useful for spotting patterns in code, which makes writing it easier. And there are nicer-looking monospaced fonts out there than Courier.

For anyone else, a typical serif font will do much better because the varying character width makes words easier to recognize.

[1995hoo]

....

As for Courier, nobody should be using it. Nobody should be using monospaced fonts in general other than programmers, since monospaced fonts are useful for spotting patterns in code, which makes writing it easier. And there are nicer-looking monospaced fonts out there than Courier.

For anyone else, a typical serif font will do much better because the varying character width makes words easier to recognize.

The same guy who publishes Equity has a monospaced font called Alix. (Sample here) I think it looks pretty good for a monospaced font, though I haven't bought it. I believe the New Jersey appellate courts require a monospaced font but don't specify a particular one the way Virginia's Supreme Court does, so I'd buy Alix if I needed to file something in New Jersey.

Big issue is compatibility. Other people don't have Equity or Alix, so I have to embed the font in a document, but that still doesn't always work correctly unless I send a .PDF.

[Scott5114]

Alix is pretty nice, but there are far more attractive monospace fonts out there for free, thanks to programmers looking for ways to make coding easier.

[vtk]

If I were setting requirements for the formatting of documents submitted electronically, I'd be tempted to encourage a format that doesn't specify a font at all, so whoever has to read or print the thing will automatically get it in whatever font he's selected as the default.  And I encourage everyone to choose their own default font settings in whatever software has such a thing, rather than blindly concurring with the vendor's choice.



From Sentence Spacing on Wikipedia:

One of the most popular arguments against wider sentence spacing is that it was created for monospaced fonts of the typewriter, and is no longer needed with modern proportional fonts.  However, this argument ignores the historical record, where proportional fonts together with wide sentence spacing (almost universally an em quad in English language texts) existed for centuries before the typewriter, and remained for some time after its invention.

I like the appearance and tradition of wider sentence spacing.  Similarly, I believe true concert pitch has A=439Hz; it was only changed to 440Hz because technicians at that time could more easily produce the "round" number.  Of course, in that case I can't perceive the difference anyway.

[1995hoo]

Wikipedia as a conclusive source?

Anyway, I don't believe I ever said it's "wrong" to put two spaces between a sentence. I merely asked what other people here do. I mentioned you simply because I could see from looking at your comments that you use two and you appeared to be the only person in this thread who does so. What amuses me is that in my observation it is many "two-spacers" who are adamant about that practice and who will tell "one-spacers" that it is "wrong" or "unacceptable" to use one space (which, if true, would mean pretty much all professionally-typeset material is formated "incorrectly").

I have a brief to finish later today that is going to be close to the page limit. I may be pulling out some of the formatting tricks like hyphenation and the like. The thing I hate is when sometimes there's almost no way to avoid what we called an "orphan" at my college newspaper–a paragraph ending with one or two words alone on a line. Sometimes you simply can't avoid that sort of thing due to quotations or citations. Aside from being unsightly, the bigger issue is that those sorts of lines waste space.

As far as setting format for electronic submissions, courts that require electronic filing require you to submit in .PDF, so the font compatibility isn't really an issue. It will print correctly. The bigger issue I find is when I'm collaborating on a document. I either embed the font or use Times New Roman and then change it at the end of the process. For some reason, even when I embed fonts they don't always display properly, and it becomes a massive hassle when someone is citing page numbers over the phone but the material appears in a different place on their screen.

[jeffandnicole]

I think before the age of computers, typing was mostly done for professional reports, documents, etc.  In that age, those people that works at typists had specialized training in typing, and were taught the two space method after each sentence.  I took typing in the 9th grade and do it without a 2nd thought. (Of course, now that I'm thinking about it writing this, it's harder to do it!).

Most people today (and for the past 20 years) start typing when they're probably 2 or 3 years old, and just start using a style that works for them.  So when they are at work typing, they're just typing as they had been growing up. Most employers don't really care, as long as the report is clean and legible.

[vtk]

The thing I hate is when sometimes there's almost no way to avoid what we called an "orphan" at my college newspaper–a paragraph ending with one or two words alone on a line. Sometimes you simply can't avoid that sort of thing due to quotations or citations. Aside from being unsightly, the bigger issue is that those sorts of lines waste space.

I thought an orphan was when the last line of a paragraph falls directly after a page break.

Anyway, it sucks when you just can't pack the last word or two of a paragraph into the previous line.  I guess you just have to conclude it won't fit.  Then to make less ugly, maybe go less agressive with hyphenation and other tricks for that paragraph, to make the last line more full.

[1995hoo]

The thing I hate is when sometimes there's almost no way to avoid what we called an "orphan" at my college newspaper–a paragraph ending with one or two words alone on a line. Sometimes you simply can't avoid that sort of thing due to quotations or citations. Aside from being unsightly, the bigger issue is that those sorts of lines waste space.

I thought an orphan was when the last line of a paragraph falls directly after a page break.

Anyway, it sucks when you just can't pack the last word or two of a paragraph into the previous line.  I guess you just have to conclude it won't fit.  Then to make less ugly, maybe go less agressive with hyphenation and other tricks for that paragraph, to make the last line more full.

The text in boldface is the reason why I said "what we called an 'orphan.'" The word processing software uses the words "widow" and "orphan" in the way you describe. But when you're doing newspaper work, you don't have quite the same issue with page breaks because of the way text is arranged in columns with multiple stories on a page. Of course you could still have an issue with a bit of a paragraph falling after the page jump, but we used the term differently for practical reasons. I didn't have a better expression to use in the context to which I'm referring here, so I said "what we called" figuring it was clear what I meant.

I am putting together a table of authorities right now and am taking a break because the TOA codes on my screen are making my eyes want to bug out....

[vtk]

Wikipedia as a conclusive source?

Anyway, I don't believe I ever said it's "wrong" to put two spaces between a sentence.

Someone else certainly did, and the portion of the article I quoted directly addressed the argument that had been presented.

And no, I did not intend to offer WP as a "conclusive" source.  It doesn't say one way or the other that one or two spaces is correct.  (It does seem to indicate that a majority of self-appointed authorities insist a single word space is correct, while a minority merely claims wide sentence spacing is a valid choice.)  But I didn't share the article to settle the argument.  I shared it because it offers a lot of information, and a history of the debate.  And honestly I don't expect traditional encyclopediae to have such a complete article on this subject, if they have one at all.

I thought an orphan was when the last line of a paragraph falls directly after a page break.

The text in boldface is the reason why I said "what we called an 'orphan.'" The word processing software uses the words "widow" and "orphan" in the way you describe. ... I didn't have a better expression to use in the context to which I'm referring here, so I said "what we called" figuring it was clear what I meant.

Actually it was clear.  I just wasn't entirely sure my own understanding of the term had been correct.

[1995hoo]

No worries.

I like your use of the ellipsis character there, BTW. The legal citation guides demand that you use three spaced-out periods: . . . (this often requires hard spaces to avoid the risk of breaking an ellipsis at the end of a line) I routinely ignore this rule because it's stupid and outdated. Plus if you have a word limit, as opposed to a page limit, MS Word counts the three periods as three "words" but counts the ellipsis character as one "word." I'll be damned if I'm going to lose some of my word count over a chickenshit rule like that one!

[hbelkins]

I always used two spaces when I typed anything on a typewriter. I was taught to use only one space on the old-style Compugraphic phototypesetting machines because the machine would determine the correct spacing.

I always got "widow" and "orphan" confused.

[kkt]

I use one except in the rare instance where I have to use Courier. There's no real need to use two spaces with a proportionally-spaced font.

How the flying Frutiger does that make any sense?  I type two spaces between sentences because there should be more space between them.  Simply using a proportional font doesn't accomplish this.  In a monospace font like Courier, the spaces are already a bit wider than in a proportional font, and the period takes up way more space than it needs; really, this is the one case where one doesn't need an extra space between sentences!

I agree.  Professionally typeset books usually have a bit wider space at the end of a sentence than in between words.  It's an additional cue to the reader that a new sentence begins, and like a lot of typography is generally noticed only when it's absent.

I also appreciate Courier.  It's easier to tell the difference between similar characters in Courier than in most other fonts, and especially easier than most sans-serif fonts.  1 or l or I, O or 0, m or rn, etc.  It doesn't matter for most fiction, but when the differences are critical, like computer programs or legal writing, Courier has a place.

Also for a typescript like a paper at school, or a draft to go to a lawyer or client, the extra space in Courier gives room to write in corrections by hand.

[DTComposer]

Similarly, I believe true concert pitch has A=439Hz; it was only changed to 440Hz because technicians at that time could more easily produce the "round" number.  Of course, in that case I can't perceive the difference anyway.

(digging music history out of deep recesses of brain)

I think the concept of "true" concert pitch doesn't really exist - there are several accepted standards for concert pitch - The US and UK have had it at 440 since the 1930s; Other European countries have it higher (442?). The general trend over the centuries has been raising of pitch standards; although in earlier times pitch standards could vary wildly from country to country (and within those countries) - for many, pitch standard was fixed to whatever the local organ was tuned to.

Our first-chair trumpet in high school could hear a tuner set to 436, tell you it was flat, then as you clicked up, would stop you when it got to 440 and tell you, "that's right."

[vtk]

My latest project:

Mainframe Serif
A scalable interpretation of 1990s-era PC 80×25 text-mode characters in TrueType



I'm sure there are already several TrueType fonts like this in the wild, but it seems unlikely any of them address the following details:

• 80 rows by 25 columns will form a block of text in a 4:3 aspect ratio
• There was variability in the character cell sizes; while logically 8 pixels wide, they were often displayed with an extra padding pixel, and the height could be 14 or 16 scan lines
• In 80×25 text mode, the pixels were never square (but nobody cared, because individual pixels couldn't be painted anyway)
• In order for a font like this to be useable on-screen, hinting is essential

My progress so far
I've determined the standard proportions for letterforms, keeping in mind how that will translate to pixels at various sizes.  I've drawn the glyphs you see above.  I've done hinting for the characters "˜The' and the missing-character glyph.  Progress will come slowly.

Pixels, font size, and ClearType
To match screen pixels to the classic font 1:1 vertically, you'll need to display the font at 12 PPEM (9pt at 96DPI) for the 14-scanline version or 13PPEM (10pt at 96DPI) for the 16-scanline version.  Character cells will be less than 8 pixels wide at this size; ClearType brings additional horizontal resolution to text display, abating this problem and simulating pixels that aren't as wide as they are tall.  To match screen pixels to the classic font 1:1 horizontally, display the font at 16PPEM (12pt at 96DPI). 

[Scott5114]

The all-important question: dotted zero or slash zero?

I've seen a font like this called Video Terminal Screen that seemed to work well enough. I don't think it attempted to fully vectorize the font, however. It's kind of weird seeing it with fully rendered curves.

What I'd really like to see is a TTF of the font used by the IBM 3270 terminal emulator, but that's pretty obscure, so...

[vtk]

The all-important question: dotted zero or slash zero?

I've seen a font like this called Video Terminal Screen that seemed to work well enough. I don't think it attempted to fully vectorize the font, however. It's kind of weird seeing it with fully rendered curves.

It's a dotted zero.  (Which is already done and hinted, but it just doesn't show up in that preview and I forgot about it.)  Unless the space inside the main loop is less than 3px wide, then it becomes a slashed zero.  For my older, related fonts String Literal and String Variable, I came up with a compromise: the slashdot.

As for the curves, there's a pretty good reason for that.  If I just did a pixellated font, it would look really clunky if not displayed at just the right size, and using hinting to mitigate that could be a challenge.  By using curved glyphs and hinting, it's more likely that the finished font will at small sizes look like it was drawn natively for that specific size and resolution; at larger sizes, it won't look like a "pixel font", but it will still have the same flavor of the old text-mode characters.

Edit: slash vs dot, now adaptive

[vtk]

Update: moar hinting!



It's not looking so great below 10PPEM.  I could write more hinting code to fix it, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort.  And I still haven't figured out what's making the T lopsided.

[Scott5114]

Oh, I get why you're doing it that way. It's just that I'm so used to seeing the pixelated version of it that it's amusing to see it as a vectorized font. Kind of reminds me of ITC Clearface for some reason.

The reason why I asked about the 0 is because there are versions of this typeface floating around with slashed 0s as well.

[vtk]

Thanks to Saia LTL Freight, I have become aware of a font family that I think would work great on road signs: Beval.  Specifically, the "Regular" variant and heavier.  And of course significantly increased interletter spacing would be appropriate. 

[vtk]

This site has a lot of fonts which are presented as free for commerical use: Font Squirrel

Among the fonts are Expressway, a single-weight font that looks like a lighter version of Blue Highway, and Overpass which comes in regular and bold and is fairly close to E and EM.  I also noticed Railway, which is a clone of the London Underground font whose name I forget.  Plenty of other useful fonts, and of course a bazillion gimmicky ones.

[bandit957]

Futura is also lovingly known as the 'Sesame Street' font!

[PurdueBill]

My class notes primarily use Times New Roman probably out of habit from old versions of Word, although I had first done computer word processing in WordPerfect 4.2 for DOS--yep, before the famous WP 5.1 even.  The headers use either Futura or TW Cen MT--I was and am absent-minded enough to switch between them because they look so alike.  I know I should get them all changed to the same font.  Roadgeek FHWA fonts also tend to appear here and there and are especially dominant in the syllabi as headers.  I just like them.

Certain handwriting-type fonts are nearly useless.  I do find use for some monospaced fonts sometimes for URLs to be stylish if in the mood--OCR A Extended seems to look good to me for such a use.

As I type this, my fingers automatically enter two spaces after every sentence.  Learned it that way and will never manage to unlearn.  I like my Oxford (serial) commas as well, and misplaced apostrophes piss me off.  When handwriting I cross my 7s and Zs and if needed to avoid ambiguity, slash my zeros.  Yes, this guarantees that no one will probably exactly copy me. 

[oscar]

I always used two spaces when I typed anything on a typewriter. I was taught to use only one space on the old-style Compugraphic phototypesetting machines because the machine would determine the correct spacing.

Late to the thread here, but I default to two spaces between sentences, and only reduce it to one space when I'm thinking about it.

When I was practicing law, and composed my own briefs, they had page limits (later the limits were changed to micromanage fonts, line spacing, etc. before largely shifting to word limits, but by then I was letting paralegals handle the various format rules we had to deal with). One space rather than two between sentences was one of the first tricks we used to squeeze under a page limit.

[bandit957]

There's a new font called Dyslexie that I'm quite fond of. It resembles Arial, but the letters are designed to be easier to read. The letters seem to have thicker strokes near the bottom.

I read much faster when this font is used.

[hbelkins]

I always used two spaces when I typed anything on a typewriter. I was taught to use only one space on the old-style Compugraphic phototypesetting machines because the machine would determine the correct spacing.

Late to the thread here, but I default to two spaces between sentences, and only reduce it to one space when I'm thinking about it.

When I was practicing law, and composed my own briefs, they had page limits (later the limits were changed to micromanage fonts, line spacing, etc. before largely shifting to word limits, but by then I was letting paralegals handle the various format rules we had to deal with). One space rather than two between sentences was one of the first tricks we used to squeeze under a page limit.

Ever run into a situation where different court jurisdictions had differing local rules? I have heard of instances in Kentucky where different judges have different rules for fonts, page margins, etc. in different judicial districts or circuits.