Crash course on typography
October 11, 2018 8:39 AM Subscribe
Help me find authoritative sources that will explain to people at work why it's ludicrous that we're still required to use a fixed-width font in written work, and why we should switch to a variable-width font like pretty much every other organization in the known universe.
For reasons way too stupid to get into, the organization I work for still uses a fixed width font -- Courier New, to be exact -- in all its documents; it's driven me insane for the past 12 years. After a ton of agitating from both me (mostly) and a few other people here, they formed a Typography Committee (!) to consider the issue of switching to a different font (!!). Yay, I guess?
Anyway, among the reasons that everyone has given me for the past 12 years for requiring a fixed-width font are:
1. It's the way we've always done it. (I mean.)
2. The documents are easier to read in this font. (NO. NO THEY FUCKING AREN'T.)
3. It would be too hard to make everything across the organization uniform if we switched fonts. (Yeah. No, I don't understand it either.)
Now, I'm not a graphic designer or any sort of expert in typography, but I worked in educational publishing for a bunch of years, where fonts and readability are a big deal, so I know two things: first, variable-width fonts are far easier to read than fixed-width fonts; and second, serif fonts are generally easier to read than sans-serif fonts.
I can tell them this, but these are not people who change their minds easily, and the organization loves tradition. So I'd love to distribute some actual written sources on typography and readability, so at the committee meeting, it's not just me pounding the table and telling them I know what I'm talking about. It would be easiest if it were something on the internet, but I'd also be fine with using sources I couldn't find on the internet, as our librarian could probably put his hands on them for me pretty quickly. Bonus points if the source also explained why a ragged right margin is best for readability, because I'll bet folding money that they'll decide that full justification would make the documents look nicer.
Thanks, everybody!
For reasons way too stupid to get into, the organization I work for still uses a fixed width font -- Courier New, to be exact -- in all its documents; it's driven me insane for the past 12 years. After a ton of agitating from both me (mostly) and a few other people here, they formed a Typography Committee (!) to consider the issue of switching to a different font (!!). Yay, I guess?
Anyway, among the reasons that everyone has given me for the past 12 years for requiring a fixed-width font are:
1. It's the way we've always done it. (I mean.)
2. The documents are easier to read in this font. (NO. NO THEY FUCKING AREN'T.)
3. It would be too hard to make everything across the organization uniform if we switched fonts. (Yeah. No, I don't understand it either.)
Now, I'm not a graphic designer or any sort of expert in typography, but I worked in educational publishing for a bunch of years, where fonts and readability are a big deal, so I know two things: first, variable-width fonts are far easier to read than fixed-width fonts; and second, serif fonts are generally easier to read than sans-serif fonts.
I can tell them this, but these are not people who change their minds easily, and the organization loves tradition. So I'd love to distribute some actual written sources on typography and readability, so at the committee meeting, it's not just me pounding the table and telling them I know what I'm talking about. It would be easiest if it were something on the internet, but I'd also be fine with using sources I couldn't find on the internet, as our librarian could probably put his hands on them for me pretty quickly. Bonus points if the source also explained why a ragged right margin is best for readability, because I'll bet folding money that they'll decide that full justification would make the documents look nicer.
Thanks, everybody!
To roleplay some pushback based on your points.
1) I know why it irks you, but fluff changes like this can be a pain in the ass depending on organization and how long people have been there.
2) Until reading supercres' link, intuitively I would not have felt variable or fixed was inherently more or less readable. Courier New is a font I like and do not instinctively find hard to read in any way. Now, from your experience and from the above linked evidence, it's hard to argue against reasonably, but people are usually not reasonable and it's easy to go from gut feelings to dispute the legibility aspect.
3) From someone who does graphic design, when a company "re-brands" in any way, often there's a bunch of forms and documents and signage and whatnot that has to get updated to the new style, except often they don't do it all at once, so a year later you'll update something and be told oh you forgot to use *this* version of whatever and will need to fix it. Is it a big deal if department A's forms have a different font than Department B's? No, unless the organization makes it be one and then it unfortunately is one, depending on environment/culture there.
That said, between supercres linked studies/evidence, your best bet might still be pushing that angle. Readability/accessibility are things a company can be made to understand or prioritize.
As for rag right vs full justified, I think it will depend on context, but in general, seems like full justified is less readable. Personally, I think full justified only looks "nicer" in specific contexts anyway, using it as default across the board is giving me hyphen aches.
Link Link
Good luck in your endeavor, it's a noble task and I do not envy trying to convince folks entrenched in their ways to change.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:00 AM on October 11, 2018 [3 favorites]
1) I know why it irks you, but fluff changes like this can be a pain in the ass depending on organization and how long people have been there.
2) Until reading supercres' link, intuitively I would not have felt variable or fixed was inherently more or less readable. Courier New is a font I like and do not instinctively find hard to read in any way. Now, from your experience and from the above linked evidence, it's hard to argue against reasonably, but people are usually not reasonable and it's easy to go from gut feelings to dispute the legibility aspect.
3) From someone who does graphic design, when a company "re-brands" in any way, often there's a bunch of forms and documents and signage and whatnot that has to get updated to the new style, except often they don't do it all at once, so a year later you'll update something and be told oh you forgot to use *this* version of whatever and will need to fix it. Is it a big deal if department A's forms have a different font than Department B's? No, unless the organization makes it be one and then it unfortunately is one, depending on environment/culture there.
That said, between supercres linked studies/evidence, your best bet might still be pushing that angle. Readability/accessibility are things a company can be made to understand or prioritize.
As for rag right vs full justified, I think it will depend on context, but in general, seems like full justified is less readable. Personally, I think full justified only looks "nicer" in specific contexts anyway, using it as default across the board is giving me hyphen aches.
Link Link
Good luck in your endeavor, it's a noble task and I do not envy trying to convince folks entrenched in their ways to change.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:00 AM on October 11, 2018 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Matthew Butterick (Butterick’s Practical Typography, Typography for Lawyers) is succinct and online, if a blunt, authoritative voice will help:
Monospaced fonts were invented to meet the mechanical requirements of typewriters. They were not invented to win beauty contests. Compared to proportional fonts, monospaced fonts are harder to read. And because they take up more horizontal space, you’ll always get fewer words per page with a monospaced font.posted by miles per flower at 9:41 AM on October 11, 2018
In standard body text, there are no good reasons to use monospaced fonts. So don’t. Use proportional fonts.
When typefaces are changed, documents can reflow and cause a whole bunch of pagination issues. You might have to re-set every single item your company produces for internal handbooks and things like that. That could get expensive in production time lost and/or hiring an outside vendor to change everything over. And what about legacy documents saved in an archive? Suddenly you have to pull one of those out and your template has changed.... and then of course there is the whole problem of sending say a MS Word document with some unusual font and the recipient not having the font so everything is wonky. You would need to choose a common font (Comic Sans! lol). Most computers have Courier New. If a new font is chosen, I'd say leave old documents as-is and maybe set new documents from this point forward in the new font. Save everything as PDFs with fonts embedded so there are no font issues when opening a new document. All this depends on your workflow or the kinds of documents you are talking about.
posted by cass at 9:42 AM on October 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by cass at 9:42 AM on October 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Oh, just to clarify: no one is contemplating going back and changing everything, for sure. We're just talking about all documents produced from now on.
posted by holborne at 9:46 AM on October 11, 2018
posted by holborne at 9:46 AM on October 11, 2018
Matthew Butterick (Butterick’s Practical Typography, Typography for Lawyers) is succinct and online
FWIW, following that link will lead to a page with this passive-aggressive message:
FWIW, following that link will lead to a page with this passive-aggressive message:
…That’s why this is not a free book. But it’s not ad-supported either. Rather, it’s reader-supported—meaning, I need readers like you to send me money. Not a lot of money. And not every reader. Some readers. Which readers? The ones who enjoy it and find value in the information. But there’s no paywall. It’s an honor system. For more information, see—posted by Lexica at 5:06 PM on October 11, 2018
How to pay for this book
The trouble is, not everyone is playing fair. Like the website that linked you here. It’s costing me money, because it sends over a lot of readers, and almost none of them end up paying.
So who does? Me.
Sorry, but I just can’t afford it any more. And frankly, I don’t want to afford it—most of the websites on my naughty list are harvesting big money from your attention (through ads) while relying on others (e.g., writers like me) to provide the material they can talk about in their listicles.…
If there are technical documents where strings have to be compared for length and overlap by eyeball (such as DNA sequences) then monospace is the way to go.
posted by lalochezia at 8:02 AM on October 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by lalochezia at 8:02 AM on October 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Update: The higher-ups agreed to 12-point Georgia, with a 1-inch ragged right margin. I'll accept that!
posted by holborne at 9:37 AM on October 17, 2018
posted by holborne at 9:37 AM on October 17, 2018
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The variable--matrix character design resulted in significantly improved efficiency in two of the three tasks, and this character design is recommended for use on television screens.
Here are works that cite it.
posted by supercres at 8:44 AM on October 11, 2018