Death of a Typeface | Hacker News Reader

Death of a Typeface

ilovetypography.com

79 pointsingve17 comments

Of course the quintessential French typefaces nowadays are Garamond, Didot, and to a lesser extent Futura and Avenir. The Romain du Roy failed to catch on due to its overly austere geometric construction.

Maybe it didn't catch on because it's pretty much illegible?

Maybe it's pretty much illegible because it didn't catch on, though?

Could be. At the same time, it's for the latin alphabet which has had a baseline for legibility at least since the Romans started carving it into marble. Even most hand-written textura follows clearer design rules than Civilité.

And it only contains digits 0..8

Hah, didn't even notice that. Perhaps you were supposed to use q in lieu of 9? That'd sort of work.

You probably turn the 6 upside down.

“Dyslexics of Gaul, Unite!”

Boy, do I feel stupid now.

And now you know who's used real metal type. I did quite a bit of it in Junior High.

Your comment is spot on to me really.

I drive past businesses that I cannot read the font on their signs and wonder if that cuts out on their traffic. It does for me... I cant read the damn sign... therefore I will never be able to determine if I should go there and spend money.

Anyway good comment and being able to read a font should be right up there in the list of things a font should do. :)

I think the same thing when I see graffiti. People risk being arrested, or even their lives, spray-painting their names in odd places. But if they're so artistic about it that nobody knows what it says, what's the point?

The "point" of art for art's sake rarely involves communicating the name in the signature; even if the signature is part of the work.

That's just what you are accustomed to. Use it for a week and you'll be fluent in it. I find it much more legible than Gothic, at least.

That's just what you are accustomed to

Legibility isn't about preferences or what someone is familiar with. There's a reason things like Helvetica and the Palmer Method were developed.

If you're writing or printing something, you goal is to communicate. Intentionally obfuscating your own message is the opposite of communication.

That's not to say you can't be artistic. But it can go too far.

/Communication degree.

I'm aware of legibility research, although you do have a point. It's just that I could read 95% of this at first sight without any particular training, so I figured its legibility scores would be quite high. But yeah, n = 1 and all that.

I guess, paper use may have been an issue. Compare the side-by-side of italics and Civilité. Paper has always been a rather expensive resource…

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