[IxDA Discuss] Arial vs Vernada?

[Jeff Seager]

Type is fascinating, both in its history and in the variety of its
creative implementations. I've worked in media (mostly print) since
I was 14 years old -- even longer if you count delivering newspapers
-- and now that my hair is thin and gray, I own dozens of books on
typography.

I'd like to see a system that could redesign typography "on the
fly" while still allowing end users on the Web the control they
should have over local presentation. There are issues that will have
to be addressed -- probably in the visual browsers or in the
operating systems themselves, but maybe elsewhere. I don't think you
can simply amend the UTF-8 specification to include new glyphs for
ligatures, for example. But maybe, in the long run, you can.

It's a brilliant and noble dream to enable more elegant typography
on the Web, but I'm having a hard time visualizing just how it would
be as practical as it would be beautiful. That could be a limitation
in my own design, eh?

Am I a typographic Luddite? I don't think so, because historically
typographers have always struggled to accommodate the limitations of
new media. Imagine the typographic sacrifices (and gains) made in the
transition from monastic scribes to the Gutenberg press, or in
transitioning Chinese and Japanese calligraphy to print. I think we
can count on something being lost in the translation to this new
medium, as well, and salvaging that "something" may be tough.

But, as I said, I'd like to see it! What's the next step necessary
to move from lamenting the problem of inelegant typography to
resolving it? I can't imagine any better candidates for that job
than a bunch of interaction designers.


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Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24248