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(now maybe only a very few of you care. But as an old printer, this stuff matters to me)
(samples in the article)

Aptos, Microsoft’s New Default Font for Office Documents

I don’t know if Microsoft actually chose Aptos (née Bierstadt) based on customer feedback, but it says a lot about the company either way. Companies that have taste do not conduct design via surveys.

By John Gerber

daringfireball.net/2023/07/apt

TBH, I thought you were angry at the Mermaid for a second... 😆, but my favorite font is Blackletter686.

@corlin @tyghebright

@Heucuva8 @tyghebright @evistre

Excuse me...
Maybe for the title on a heavy metal record.....
but not for reading.

My go to for reading:

Elena
Lyon
Tisa
Ideal Sans
San Francisco
Proxima Nova
Verdana
Helvetica
Georgia
Palatino

@corlin @Heucuva8 @tyghebright @evistre I use the Neuro Diverse font on kindle. It's ugly as hell, but I manage to keep track of where I am.

Aesthetics are nice but function has to take priority for my easily distracted brain.

@DanielCoopreal @Heucuva8 @tyghebright @evistre

Yep..
I am glad it exists.
And many programs I use offer it as an alternative.

Oh absolutely not for reading... definitely. What do you think of Dialog? It's pretty legible but doesn't look silly like comic sans or boring like Times New Roman.

@corlin @tyghebright @evistre

@Heucuva8 @tyghebright @evistre

Dialog is certainly readable.
If rather boring.
The lack of any curves, seems lees than optimal.

But over all it is a nice, if pricey font.

@corlin

I love a couple of fonts that were designed for non-English alphabets.

Leelawadee, a sans serif designed for Thai.

Iskola Pota, a serif font designed for Sinhala

@corlin "grotesque sans serifs are having a moment" is right.

Yuck.

@corlin so, I looked at the fonts in the article and ISTG I did not realize that Calibi changed the "a", "e", and "g" shapes when moving from standard to italics. No idea.

I kinda like the new one, Aptos.

(and Yes, I work in the industry as well, I'm in a digital pre-press. I make the offset plates for 4 different kinds of 1- to 6-color offset presses)

Thanks for sharing the article!

@kismatt

Cool I was hand pre-press, for 30 years. Hand color separation on film. Hand color correction on film.
And hand film to plate making.

You know all this, but I wrote a thing.

world.hey.com/corlin/a-tale-of

@corlin :D Yep. I started in analog pre-press, right at the start of when they were transitioning to digital separations, so....1998? or so?We still did some conversion to duotones and such up til 2020, when the client wanted to use black and a pantone color. That was fun! NOT. lol

I don't miss doing autostepped exposures onto the plates by hand, either. Love my laser plateburner! Even if the RIP software we are using is still running on a WinXP box that's 20 years old.

@kismatt

Yes.
Not fun.
But a skill, a trade, I would even say an art.

I worked in union shops, mostly high end magazines, and fine art reproductions. We were very well paid. And valued. Very few could do hand color separation, with a process camera, and filters, on 24" x 36" litho film. Hand developed, in trays. Hand striped. And ready for press in one shift.

Yes I am a bit proud of the work.

@kismatt @corlin I am by no means a font expert. Nor do I use Microsoft products. But I like this article and I, personally, like the trend of sans-serif/serif blending, particularly for hard to distinguish letters. I think putting a curve on the lowercase l is important. I hate the confusion that sans serif l and I cause. (See, which one is a lowercase L and which one is an uppercase i?). And I like the curliness of the Aptos quote marks, too.

@Ellomumsy @kismatt

This is well said.
And that fact that you noticed.
Means you have a discerning eye.

👍🏽

@corlin @kismatt I was a web developer who had to pay attention to fonts (especially in those early years in the 90s/00s) and I also worked with user experience and graphic designers who taught me bunches. I like this stuff!

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