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Baskerville Is the Greatest Font, Statistically, Says Filmmaker Errol Morris
An anonymous reader writes "A survey of unsuspecting New York Times readers implicitly answered the question: Does a certain font make you agree or disagree more often than another font? It turns out Baskerville confers a 1.5% advantage towards agreement on a survey question, compared to an average of six fonts. They were asked to agree or disagree to a passage from physicist David Deutsch's book The Beginning of Infinity, and were found to have an optimistic, if Baskerville-favoring, outlook on life. David Dunning, a psychologist awarded a Nobel prize and, separately, an IgNobel prize (for the eponymous Dunning-Kruger Effect), called Baskerville 'the king of fonts.' Sadly, Comic Sans — notable for its appearance in the Higgs Boson announcement — seems to be the weakest font. And why did Lisa Randall, the Harvard physicist responsible for that Higgs announcement use Comic Sans? According to the article, 'Because I like it.'"
I majored in physics in college, and spent a lot of time with physicists from world renowned Nobel prize winners to lowly undergraduates. I can testify that physicists, in addition to lacking any appreciation for visual aesthetics, also lack the ability to properly dress themselves, shave their faces, comb their hair, speak to an audience not of their peers, and most of all they have no understanding of proper hygiene. We used to have a lounge out of which at least half a dozen kids were living, toothbrushes and all. The stench still haunts me. I remember walking into the lavatory where 3-4 physics majors were taking a shower out of a sink.
Oh, and lest you think I'm a-hatin', most of the above applies to me as well.
I recommend the whole "design triology" ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Trilogy
And for those with more time, to read the 3-volume set "Design Classics 001-999" ... http://uk.phaidon.com/store/design/phaidon-design-classics-9780714843995/
Dyslexia
While not the best, it's decent and by far the most widely available (of the fonts dyslexics find easier to read).
In the Typography course I took, we were taught that the greatest font of all time is Garamond.
It wasn't even tested in this article.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
I find Comic Sans very hard to read. Times New Roman too. Can't understand how these fonts can be allowed to exist!
I actually asked an OFSTED inspector why Comic Sans is always used in schools and nurseries - she said that it's one of the only commonly-available fonts that draws the lowercase letter "a" in the same way they teach children to draw it (no stalk on top)
http://instantbadger.blogspot.com