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PSA, again. (Fonts) - Printable Version

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PSA, again. (Fonts) - Corile - 04-21-2015

This post was originally meant in flood, but after I wrote it it looks a bit too serious to put there, so it's in here instead.

You know, there's a very nice menu on the forums, during posting. It says [Image: hNmtbKt.png] and allows to pick any font of the default fontset of Windows that you'd like! It's brilliant! You can use many awesome typefaces like Verdana, Times New Roman or Trebuchet MS. And then, there are these two. Courier and Impact.

There are many great fonts out there and then there are a handful that should NEVER ever be used UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, unless you REALLY know what you're doing. A common person may say "oh but Protégé, whooo cares". Well, I do, and I'm going to tell you right now why you should too.

First of all, we all want our threads and posts to look nice and readable for everyone on any device and any resolution(*). I've seen people misuse fonts to great extent. And why? There are fonts that are good for some things and then there are fonts that are just plainly bad all around. All you need to do is a bit of reading or just, you know, advice from that little demon that some have in their heads called COMMON SENSE.

So first, let me start with the VICIOUS TRIANGLE of typefaces. Two of these can be seen on the forums to the common folk, one of them is kinda hidden, but still usable. The vicious triangle are three worst typefaces that could ever happen to humanity: Courier, Impact and Comic Sans MS.

Courier is my personal unfavourite, because of the fact that this typeface is not used anywhere anymore except some stupid forum posts. It was good when people were using 640 by 480 displays and did not care much for proper design (1990s). Every major system has since moved to nicer, better looking monospace fonts that don't hurt your eyes when reading them. Ubuntu for example has their own, good looking typeface, OS X uses pretty nice Menlo and Windows moved to better fonts like Lucida Console or Consolas. And if that's not enough, there's plenty of good custom monospace fonts (Inconsolata is my personal favourite, but use what you want).

And even then, why do you use monospace fonts while writing walls of text anyway? That's NOT THEIR PURPOSE. Monospace fonts are mostly used in programming and that's why we associate them with tech and computery stuff. And that's good, because that's where they belong. But then there are people that decide to write entire posts in Courier which is just wrong. Monospace fonts were not designed for people to read them in normal language, their purpose is to be distinctive in cases where there is not much human language and instead things like this prevail:

[Image: Menlo.jpg]
(Example of Menlo, OS X default monospace typeface.)

So we have dealt with Courier, now it's time for Impact. It's seen widespread use in design and other things (notably: MEEEEEEEMES!), but there are some people that for instance decide to write a paragraph of text in Impact. For that purpose, I will now show you why you should not do it.

See? This is Impact. I'm not quite sure if you can read this properly, but if you can, you probably spend more time on it than regular Arial or Times New Roman. And everything goes even more hopeless if I add a colour, like, say, bright flippin red. You're still good with reading this? If so, then you're a god, good job, you can say how awesome you are to all of your friends. And then obviously, there are people who decide to italicize such a horrible font like Impact or even put it in bold. Don't do this. Ever.

The actual reason is that Impact is a font that's popular and nobody really knows why. It's not well designed, is horrible to read in small text and is generally very bad. Then again, I suppose it's been made for designers that want to create an Impact in their works (see?) and get that million dollar look, but instead they created a scornful snicker and made their design look like a 2 pence coin. Don't, just don't use this font if you don't know how to.

And Comic Sans? Well. There were people much more experienced than me discussing this topic and you can find it over at that link. A short notice though, everything said there applies to any pseudoscript font like for example Segoe Script.

So now that we know what you should not do, what should you do?

USE NORMAL FONTS.

Fonts are like fashion, they look good for a period of time and then they become obsolete and don't look good anymore. There are some that look good forever and will continue to do so (like Helvetica), same as fedoras looked, look and will look fashionable anytime. And remember that you aren't limited to the fonts under the menu. There are many more that you can use, the only problem is that the other person must have them installed as well. For that purpose we use fonts that are installed by default into Windows (since FL is a Windows game) or with the Freelancer itself.

If you need to use Courier, use a different monospace font, like Consolas.

If you need to use Impact, use a better header font, like Agency FB or Arial Black

If you need to use Comic Sans, just use Arial or Times New Roman for crying out loud. You aren't 11 years old, come on.

Thank you and good night. Put this into good use and stop making people's eyes bleed. Of course, the fonts listed above aren't all of the horrible fonts ever. There still are some, like Trajan or Papyrus, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

(*) - can we finally have percentage indents for that matter?

RE: PSA, again. (Fonts) - Thyrzul - 04-21-2015

Nope




Oh, wait, it's not flood, so...

Why do I feel from your style of writing that you want to force your opinion on others?

RE: PSA, again. (Fonts) - Neonzumi - 04-21-2015

I was too lazy to read the ENTIRE post.But from the part i red.

Yeah impact is really hard to read...

RE: PSA, again. (Fonts) - Corile - 04-22-2015

Quote:Why do I feel from your style of writing that you want to force your opinion on others?
Half of this is general facts, the other half is common sense (not that common, unfortunately). A very little is actually opinion-forming, but then again, it's a PSA.

RE: PSA, again. (Fonts) - Thyrzul - 04-22-2015

(04-22-2015, 05:05 AM)Protégé Wrote:
Quote:Why do I feel from your style of writing that you want to force your opinion on others?
Half of this is general facts, the other half is common sense (not that common, unfortunately). A very little is actually opinion-forming, but then again, it's a PSA.

Let's just say that half of this is your opinion which others may or may not share (whether or not you want others to believe they are facts), the other half is what those, who haven't realized yet that such thing does not exist at all, call "common sense", but may be trivial only for them. (Yes, in this regard your observation matches mine, common sense is not that common at all.)


RE: PSA, again. (Fonts) - Fluffyball - 04-22-2015

I use Impact for connection messages. What's so wrong with that font?

RE: PSA, again. (Fonts) - Gondoros - 04-22-2015

I like Impact, I can read it in any color or size, it looks cool. It doesn't bother me one bit so I'm gonna stick to it, and I'm not gonna criticize others for using it.

RE: PSA, again. (Fonts) - Corile - 04-25-2015

There's nothing wrong with a font per se, it's just that the three described in the OP are so frequently misused that it's just horrible to see them.

For example. Impact used as a header, like this:

IT'S A HEADER!

Code:
[size=xx-large][align=center][font=Impact][color=LightSkyBlue]IT'S A HEADER![/color][/font][/align][/size][hr]

There's nothing really wrong about that but there are better fonts to use in that instance, for example Agency FB.

IT'S A HEADER!

Code:
[size=xx-large][align=center][font=Agency FB][color=LightSkyBlue]IT'S A HEADER![/color][/font][/align][/size][hr]

As for the monospace fonts, there are good uses for them and bad uses. As an example of good use, the Lane Hacker posts show an example of how it can be done well, then again they don't use Courier (because it's ugly, refer to the first post) but Lucida Console. Also they were usable for things like tables before the table bbcode was introduced. And for crying out loud, don't use Courier for writing entire posts.

And Comic Sans is not good at all.

RE: PSA, again. (Fonts) - Thyrzul - 04-26-2015

Again, you are arguing with your opinion, with your taste of fonts, which won't work, believe me.

Also, table bbcode still has those weird dashed line borders, because of which I myself still prefer using monospace fonts and spacing with transparent characters for tables.


RE: PSA, again. (Fonts) - Riess - 04-27-2015

Personally I am using Courier for "writen on typewriter" effect, and gonna stick to it. :]

The whole part about monospace's origin and usage in walls of texts is bobbins tough, but there are two kinds of men in the world: the dev ops and those who want to see them dead, so I'll wont bother elaborate. :]

now, I'll show myself &

[Image: tumblr_inline_n275imf6mf1raprkq.gif]