Slashdot Mirror

I don't know if that's meant as a joke, but the site above is from this other Butterick. Don't think they're related.

1) Heck, even today, with all the typography snobs running around, no one has really put together a good "so you know nothing about typography, but want to pick a font" guide -- well, except for the guides which are a one liner: "Use Helvetica."

See the online book Butterick's practical typography, in special sections Typography in ten minutes and system fonts.

It's free to read, but you can pay for it, and help it by talking about it.

1) Heck, even today, with all the typography snobs running around, no one has really put together a good "so you know nothing about typography, but want to pick a font" guide -- well, except for the guides which are a one liner: "Use Helvetica."

See the online book Butterick's practical typography, in special sections Typography in ten minutes and system fonts.

It's free to read, but you can pay for it, and help it by talking about it.

1) Heck, even today, with all the typography snobs running around, no one has really put together a good "so you know nothing about typography, but want to pick a font" guide -- well, except for the guides which are a one liner: "Use Helvetica."

See the online book Butterick's practical typography, in special sections Typography in ten minutes and system fonts.

It's free to read, but you can pay for it, and help it by talking about it.

There are usually several visual indicators that already emphasize this: font size, weight, usually some sort of whitespace between heading and content, sometimes color, sometimes underlining (though that should probably be outlawed for this task together with title case :-) ), sometimes all-caps, sometimes small-caps, sometimes a sans-serif to complement the serif bread text, etc.

For the Slashdot headline, we already have:
* different background
* different text color
* a visual indicator in form of a bezel
* bold face
* larger text size
* whitespace
* the fact that it is at the top
There is no need for additional visual cues, that also actually lowers readability. It is just stupid. In fact, any typographer worth their salt will say that one of the most common problems in cases like this is that the uninformed designer uses too many visual cues, for no real reason other than "that is what I have seen others (uninformed designers) do".

I am now talking about "Slashdot Classic" -- Slashdot Beta is a separate story, and it should design-wise be burnt in a fire. The words "readability" and "legibility" were certainly not in the mix when that was conceived.

Butterick's practical typography -- freely available online book on basic typography. Very pleasant read, even though there is an underlying emphasis by the author to get the reader to buy his fonts at every opportunity (free lunch, and all that).

You're allowed to make a resume two pages long: http://practicaltypography.com/resumes.html The advice I got during my job search is to make it two sheets, one side per sheet, without being stapled together.

This is just a nitpick on your nitpick, but you wrote 6" 7' which would read as 6 inches, seven foot. You probably meant 6' 7". Ref: http://practicaltypography.com/foot-and-inch-marks.html