Favorite fonts?

[kestrell]

I realize that I am opening a serious can of geeky worms by asking this, and I even encourage that, so...

Do folks have favorite fonts?

I'm trying to decide on a font for my webpages. I want something sans serif and accessible/easy to read, but also something that evokes books. My favorite font is actually futura, which is what my business cards are in, because it is both supposedly the most easy to view font--it's a geometric sanse serif-- and associated with space travel and science fiction, due to being the easiest to see at the farthest distance. For some reason, however, it is suggested that futura should only be used for headings and signage.

Comments

Favourite fonts?

[dewline]

Oh, I have a list of my own, alright. Futura Medium certainly has its moments on that list because of its usage on Space: 1999 titles back in the 1970's. Futura Condensed Extra Bold is forever tied in my comics-fandom brain to Watchmen covers. I would argue for Futura Medium as a text font, but...whoever made that choice for Gerry and Sylvia Anderson back then chose well.

There's a lot of others on that list of personal favourites, with varying degrees and kinds of legibility issues. I should probably save that for an entry on my own DW account.

Re: Favourite fonts?

[kestrell]

Yes, please alert me when you pot that.

Also, can you send me a message offline through DW?

[totient]

I adore P22 Underground which is sans serif except for the lowercase l, which gets a little tail so you can tell it from a capital I. It manages to be clean and distinctive at the same time. The nearest free thing is probably Trebuchet MS, which is in use on some styles on this very website. But the real thing is totally worth the $25 in my opinion.

[kestrell]

Oooo, sounds lovely, I'll investigate...

[jesse_the_k]

...a word about font licensing: it really depends on the vendor. Some places let you purchase a font and use it for anything; others require separate payments for printed use; use in an app; and use on a webpage.

[kestrell]

I haven't gotten my CSS style sheet to work yet, so purchasing fonts is not even in the near future *sigh*. Do you know anything about CSS?

My CSS knowledge is almost totally absent

[jesse_the_k]

I get the idea. I get that things cascade. The naming conventions elude me.

Happy to learn of the resource which makes it all come clear!

[dewline]

I am still just beginning to wrap my mind around Cascading Style Sheets: the idea that a separate file should be created and edited in order to govern how some - or all - of the pages in a specific web site should appear to users. That all those web pages have to refer back to that file - a style sheet - to that end goal.

Learning how to design such a style sheet is one of my ongoing projects, both for my own web site's sake and for the sake of any graphic design jobs I hope to pursue.

[kestrell]

Here is the resource the class instructor refers us to, and it offers a good simple beginning, though it gets way more detailed than the little eight-week course I am taking

CSS tutorial W3 Schools
This tutorial will teach you CSS from basic to advanced.
https://www.w3schools.com/Css/default.asp

CSS Introduction
https://www.w3schools.com/Css/css_intro.asp

[jesse_the_k]

Lovely links are lovely, thank you.

[duskpeterson]

Eric Gill based his Gill Sans font on Johnston's Underground font. I think they're both good choices for accessibility, because their strokes are so thick, but I gather that Gill Sans is in wider use. Kestrell, I don't know whether you're embedding the font, or whether you have to use whatever is standard on people's computers.

(The font I use for my everyday reading is utterly without aesthetic value: Arial Rounded MT Bold. But it's very thick, and it's standard on Windows and iOS.)

[kestrell]

Hey Dusk: when you say you use it every day, is that a browser setting? I'm also trying to get a sense of how often people with visual or print impairments set their browser defaults for accessible fonts. And thanks for the extra info on font geekery *smile*.

[duskpeterson]

I use Firefox on my laptop. I have it set to override the website's choice of font with my own default font. Usually I choose Arial Rounded MT Bold as my default font, except when it's important for me to distinguish between boldface and non-boldface - for example, when I'm using HTML code in one of my own posts.

For mobile Safari, all I can do when I'm having trouble reading a page is switch to the Reader view in Safari, which provides me with a slightly larger, boldface font. When my eyes get really bad, I abandon Safari and switch over to the Perfect Browser app, which allows me to specify font style and size.

Unfortunately, none of this is obvious stuff. It took me a while to figure out there was a Firefox setting that would let me routinely override the website's fonts. And I had to spend hours and hours on the Apple app store, searching for an iOS mobile browser that would let me read in my choice of font. So I think it's fair to assume that some of your website's visitors are simply going to accept whatever font you choose for them, because they don't have the knowledge or the software to choose for themselves.

But if they do know how to override your font choice, that should be easy enough for them to do, at least in the browsers I've used. I don't think you need to do anything special on your end.

Though maybe jesse_the_k has more to say on this topic!

[kestrell]

I'm working on a document I will be posting to my new web page which collects all the resources I've accumulated during 2020.
One of the topics I want to include is links to information about browser accessibility, including links to how to tweak settings for the major browser, and perhaps a few of the most useful extensions.
Please send me any resources you think would be useful.

[duskpeterson]

Okay, I just checked Chrome, and there is no way to override the website's font choice, except with an extension. You can specify a default font, though. This may be where jesse_the_k's suggestion would work, of having the website defer to the default font, but I don't know how to code that.

Of course, this would mean that, in Safari, the user would simply see Safari's choice of default font, with the user having no choice.

Incidentally, Safari and Chrome are by far the most popular browsers currently (at least, for sighted users; I don't know about visually impaired users).

[jesse_the_k]

iOS 14, which is too buggy for me to download just yet, does let you set your default browser to something that's not Safari.

https://tidbits.com/2020/09/25/how-to-change-your-default-email-and-web-clients-in-ios-14-and-ipados-14/

I'm opening a can o worms!

[jesse_the_k]

Google Fonts provides a range of nice sans serifs. Client browsers have to download the font when opening the site, so it's less polite than specifying one of the "standard" fonts available on most OSes. Roboto and Lato are both sturdy sans. Lato has the round lowercase a that's similiar to Futura's, as opposed to Roboto's two-story version.

As far as weight goes, start with a medium for body text.

But each OS comes with its own font collection. Even "work-alike" fonts aren't identical. At various points, Apple's and Microsoft's Times New Roman were different.

So my vote is "user browser default" so specify "sans serif." If it's important to the end user, they can change their browser default to suit. I vary my defaults on a browser basis -- PT Sans or Roboto are my usuals for sans serif.

Re: I'm opening a can o worms!

[kestrell]

Thanks for the advice! And thanks for teh pangram links. I've gotten distracted this afternoon after going to download some Daisy books from NLS, and having Firefox crash every other download. I'm now checking the "it's okay to contact me about this crash" box in hopes that someone will do so. Worse comes to worse, I'll just switch back to Google for downloading from NLS, but it's kind of annoying, though props to FF for making reopening FF and restoring my session very quick.

Re: I'm opening a can o worms!

[duskpeterson]

In Firefox, it's possible for the user to override the website's font choice in favor of the user's font choice, regardless of what font the website specifies. Unfortunately, if the website designer *doesn't* specify a choice of font, what happens on the iPhone/iPad is that the user is stuck with whatever Safari considers to be a suitable default font. The user can't choose the default fonts for mobile Safari.

Re: I'm opening a can o worms!

[kestrell]

Very good to know, thank you, Dusk!

Re: I'm opening a can o worms!

[jesse_the_k]

....all true, and good points.

Someday, iOS will lets us change the default browser, and that day can't come soon enough.

But in the meantime I use Navidys. It's an extension for both Mac and iOS Safari which restyles the whole page for readability. It offers serif, sans serif and Dyslexie fonts; various font sizes; inter character and interline spacing, as well as color controls.

It's like reader mode with a few more options and the entire page.

Re: I'm opening a can o worms!

[duskpeterson]

Oh, my gosh! What a super resource! But I have a few questions.

Firstly, it looks as though I have to apply the new style to every page? I can't just use it as a default style?

Secondly, it looks as though the page doesn't reflow when the text is made larger? I can't see most of the text on the webpage I'm testing it on.

And thirdly, is there any way to turn the style off once it's been applied?

Re: I'm opening a can o worms!

[duskpeterson]

Okay, I posted my questions too quickly, because I've figured out the answers on my own: I have to apply the style to each page. The webpage will reflow only if it's got a simply layout. And to go back to the default font, I just reload the page. Also, the app gets gets rid of link colors, which I find annoying.

So there are limitations to this app, but this will be fantastic for letting me read my Dreamwidth reading page in my chosen font style and size, and for reading AO3 fic without my having to download the fic as e-books.

You have just saved my eyes a lot of pain this winter. Thank you so much.

Re: I'm opening a can o worms!

[jesse_the_k]

Hooray for learning through poking around (my #1 approach). Yeah, the tool isn't perfect yet, but it IS a start, and I hope you'll join in me in gently pestering the dev.

.... but as far as Dreamwidth reading goes, let me (briefly) trumpet the joys of style=mine.

DW offers style overrides for three cases: what your own journal looks like, what a page on someone else's journal looks like, and what your reading list looks like.

For example, here's your reading page in your own style:

https://duskpeterson.dreamwidth.org/read?style=original

I'm planning on writing this up someday Real Soon Now. Luckily, greywash did an outstanding job (while also exploring some access philosophy at length). I've included my comment thread because it links to the appropriate DW settings pages.

https://greywash.dreamwidth.org/61819.html?thread=249979#cmt249979

Re: I'm opening a can o worms!

[duskpeterson]

Yup, I know about style=mine. You can also set it up through this page:

https://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/settings/?cat=display

I'm fond of style=light too, for linking.

By the way, the gentleman who runs Navidys is a sweetheart. I pointed out to him that, once the style was applied, it was impossible to tell where the links were. Within 24 hours, he posted an update that solved the problem.