How Fonts Are Fueling the Culture Wars (backchannel.com)

Comic Sans by lactose99 · 2017-05-22 08:03 · Score: 5, Funny

Make everything Comic Sans, problem solved!

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Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist

Re:Comic Sans by penandpaper · 2017-05-22 08:04 · Score: 1

God help us.
Re:Comic Sans by freeze128 · 2017-05-22 08:08 · Score: 1

I don't know why everyone hates comic sans... maybe it was just overused and everyone just got sick of it... but I find it very easy to read. Some of the more fancy and embellished fonts are much harder to read.
Re:Comic Sans by jfdavis668 · 2017-05-22 08:08 · Score: 1

You have my vote.
Re:Comic Sans by ShanghaiBill · 2017-05-22 08:09 · Score: 4, Funny

According to my will, my obituary will be published in Comic Sans.
I love to annoy Font Nazis, and that will be my last opportunity.
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:12 · Score: 0

I don't have anything against the font itself, but in my experience there is absolutely a correlation between the use of that font and elevated douchitude.
Re:Comic Sans by darkain · 2017-05-22 08:25 · Score: 5, Funny

That's okay, I plan to have mine published in Wingdings
Re:Comic Sans by ShanghaiBill · 2017-05-22 08:28 · Score: 1

in my experience there is absolutely a correlation between the use of that font and elevated douchitude.
There was a famous incident when several thousand people were laid off, and their dismissal notices were printed in Comic Sans.
Disclaimer: I can't find a citation, so this is probably not actually true, but still, it is a good story.
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:31 · Score: 0

And make every article in Medium equally ridiculous? Blasphemy!
Re:Comic Sans by DontBeAMoran · 2017-05-22 08:33 · Score: 1

Here's a funny image made by an idiot because PNG was the obvious choice for this kind of image.

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#DeleteFacebook
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:42 · Score: 1, Insightful

Odd, because I've noticed a correlation between people who complain about that font and douchitude. Seriously, you're getting up in arms about a font not because it's difficult to read but because it doesn't look "professional"? It's easy to read, and it looks nice, who cares beyond that?
Re:Comic Sans by The+Grim+Reefer · 2017-05-22 08:52 · Score: 2

According to my will, my obituary will be published in Comic Sans. I love to annoy Font Nazis, and that will be my last opportunity.

Obituaries are so ephemeral. You should see about using Comic Sans on your gravestone. If you can get one coated in alumin(i)um is should add a couple hundred extra years to it.
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:58 · Score: 5, Informative

I don't know why everyone hates comic sans...

As with everything, it's Microsoft's fault. /s
In the mid/late 90s, the PC revolution meant that Microsoft Word became ubiquitous. Word made it easy to put together a "publication ready" document. Now, instead of having publishing software and tools in the hands of an elite group of users, steeped in the craft of typography, anyone with a computer could do it.
But Word didn't present these new users with any of the arcane knowledge of when to use which font that typography experts had. No one was teaching them the significance of serif versus sans serif. It didn't talk about the cultural implications of humanist typefaces. -- No, it just presented a simple drop-down box containing every font on the system, and left it to the user to pick one that they wanted, with little to no guidance.
Combined with this is the advent of the Internet for the masses, and particularly in Internet standardization. Comic Sans was one of the fonts picked as a standard web font -- and for good reason! It's very useful for short text in comic-like settings. That's what it was designed for - a font that could be used in dialog bubbles in computer-produced versions of things like Batman and Spiderman comics. The early web standardizers saw the use of such a font for various things on the internet, like info boxes and captions, etc. It wasn't intended as the main font on a primarily-text document, but if it wasn't included in the standard, you couldn't count on it for even the odd usage.
But all this consideration was lost on the users of Word - no one bothered to tell them what the intent of the font was, or give them any information or guidance in picking the font they want to use(1). Nope. Users were forced to randomly try fonts, and pick what they thought was best. And since they were (*sniff*) "the masses", they picked what they thought looked nice. All the esoteric considerations that knowledgeable typography experts apply are thrown out the window. And Comic Sans *does* look nice - in small doses (which is all you get when you have novices trying fonts out). Also, when compared to the other fonts you had available at the time, it stood out. (Let's be honest: from a high-level perspective, there's not much difference between Times New Roman and Garamond. You'd have to be a typography expert to explain in which situations you'd prefer one over the other.)
So a large number of people picked Comic Sans, thinking they were being sophisticated by not leaving Word to use the default typeface. This lead to the use of Comic Sans in a number of situations where it was just not done, according to the typography elite. It quickly became a way to separate those with typographical sophistication from the hoi polloi. We can all get together and laugh at the naiveté of those uncouth barbarians who pick Comic Sans. We all get behind a movement to Ban Comic Sans as a form of virtue signalling. Being against Comic Sans is not so much about having objections about the use of the font (which, don't get me wrong, there *are* valid reasons for), but about associating yourself with the type of people who are against the font (i.e. the literate, learned, cultured people who care about typefaces).
tl;dr - People hate Comic Sans because Microsoft eliminated the barrier to entry in publishing for people without typographical knowledge.
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."
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 09:11 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's not funny, just pretentious.
Comic Sans has an actual use in the classroom for young readers and writers. It is the only font that has all of the following features at the same time:
a. It's widely available, installed on pretty much any computer some random Word or PowerPoint file might find itself.
b. The lower case "a" has a single loop and a small tail, the way it's usually taught for handwriting.
c. The lower case "g" has a single loop and a hook, the way it's usually taught for handwriting.
d. The "I" and "l" characters are easily distinguished (see what I did there?).
e. The "U" and "u" characters are easily distinguished.
Re:Comic Sans by xevioso · 2017-05-22 09:31 · Score: 1

No. People hate comic sans because it looks like a child's version of a font. Hell, the name itself, "COMIC sans" indicates it's not to be taken seriously. It's used in the real world to indicate whimsy or something pedestrian such as a sign on a door of a church that might say "Don't forget to bring a dish for the potluck this Sunday morning at 11!" and that's perfectly fine.
When you are trying to get someone to invest in something called the "The Chappaquiddick Binomial Integrity Fund II" or something, you probably shouldn't be using Comic Sans.
Re:Comic Sans by Chris+Mattern · 2017-05-22 09:36 · Score: 1

Comic Sans on your gravestone
If you want to be truly horrified, google this. It's been done. Many times.
Re:Comic Sans by arth1 · 2017-05-22 09:41 · Score: 3, Informative

It quickly became a way to separate those with typographical sophistication from the hoi polloi.

"The hoi polloi" is like saying "the La Brea tar pits" or "The big Rio Grande river".
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 09:47 · Score: 0

I set my laptop's default font comic sans and it honestly makes everything better. Fuck haters.
Re:Comic Sans by OrangeTide · 2017-05-22 10:12 · Score: 2

Typesetters and designers are pissed that we democratized the printed word, boo hoo. Now the unwashed masses can communicate ideas, and the bourgeoisie can whine incessantly about our ugly and inferior presentation.

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“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Re:Comic Sans by David_Hart · 2017-05-22 10:18 · Score: 1

Make everything Comic Sans, problem solved!
I prefer Verdana for Email and documentation.
I do have a pet peeve with Courier and Courier New. It should have been designed with a slashed zero so that it doesn't look like a capital O and the number one to be more distinctive from a lower-case L. Consolas provides some of this but I find it to be a bit too heavy. When doing CLI documentation it makes a big difference.
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 10:51 · Score: 1

So, you are so 'elitist' that you are saying that Comic's should not be taken seriously? Which ones are those? Dare you to go make that claim on some comic related reddit...that should start a nice nasty fight.
Why is it SO hard these days for someone to simply state that something is not their preference, it doesn't appeal to them etc. without making over broad statements about the value (or lack thereof) of that thing such that they insult everyone that disagrees with their characterization of the topic.
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 11:02 · Score: 0

Comic Sans is the Yakety Sax of typography. Anything you type in that font is instantly Benny-Hillified.
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 11:09 · Score: 3, Insightful

"The hoi polloi" is like saying "the La Brea tar pits" or "The big Rio Grande river".
Merriam Webster: "Even though hoi itself means "the", in English we almost always say "the hoi polloi". Or Oxford Dictionaries: "This knowledge has led some traditionalists to insist that hoi polloi should not be used in English with the, since that would be to state the word the twice. Such arguments miss the point: once established in English, expressions such as hoi polloi are treated as a fixed unit and are subject to the rules and conventions of English." Or even the venerable OED itself: "In English use normally preceded by the def. article even though hoi means ‘the’."
It's interesting that you saw a paragraph about intellectual elites finding things by which they can look down upon others, and your response is to post something that makes you appear intellectual and discriminating, but has no basis in reality.
Re:Comic Sans by Falos · 2017-05-22 11:16 · Score: 1

Shareholders.
Re:Comic Sans by sheramil · 2017-05-22 11:40 · Score: 1

No. People hate comic sans because it looks like a child's version of a font.
I'm seeing a lot of "Idiots misuse comic sans, therefore comic sans is bad."
Hitler was a vegetarian, you know.
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 13:37 · Score: -1

Anyone who gives a flying fuck about typographical rules, beyond simply choosing something that's readable, should be spat at and then ignored. Decrying a font that IS readable calls for a loogie.
Word didn't present said arcane knowledge, nor do most people don't spend any time chasing it, because it's worthless and nobody likes a snob. We don't feel good spitting in people's faces, it's just a means to an end, that end being to make the snobs fuck off.
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 13:41 · Score: 0

all old media companies are upset at technology democratizing content creation and distribution. Look at what the **AAs are doing.
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 13:45 · Score: 1

Make everything Comic Sans ...

Except all titles and headings are in CockSure.
Re:Comic Sans by mcswell · 2017-05-22 14:57 · Score: 1

It was supposed to be named Cosmic Sense, but somewhere along the line a comedian got a hold of it...
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 15:02 · Score: 0

They probably wouldn't care so much when you're publishing your companies record profit in comic sans.
Re:Comic Sans by arth1 · 2017-05-22 15:19 · Score: 1

It's interesting that you saw a paragraph about intellectual elites finding things by which they can look down upon others, and your response is to post something that makes you appear intellectual and discriminating, but has no basis in reality.
That "the hoi polloi" is like "the La Brea" is based in reality, and not discriminating. Whatever else you extrapolated from that is on you.
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 15:20 · Score: 0

Traditional news media is being replaced by bloggers, vloggers and social media. News papers are basically dead.
And cryptocurrency will soon disrupt credit card companies' dominance in handling electronic transactions.
Ride sharing and self-driving cars will end our the reliance we have for bureaucrats to provide proper public transportation. (SF's BART has multi-billion dollar bonds, but it still costs about $2 to get from the Mission to the Embarcadero, only about 5 miles)
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 16:15 · Score: 0

That "the hoi polloi" is like "the La Brea" is based in reality
Correct insofar as "the hoi polloi" being accepted usage in English so too, it appears, is "the La Brea Tar Pits."

The La Brea Tar Pits are a group of tar pits around which Hancock Park was formed in urban Los Angeles.

That still does not explain what motivated you originally to post a comment making that observation?
Whatever else you extrapolated from that is on you.
Different AC here, but "is on you" is like writing "is on her" or "is on toast."
[Now can I be modded up +5 Informative as well?]
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 16:27 · Score: 0

Seriously, you're getting up in arms about a font not because it's difficult to read but because it doesn't look "professional"? It's easy to read, and it looks nice, who cares beyond that?
Anyone who cares whether their printed text is taken seriously or not.
It's been shown that same text has lower credibility when rendered in Comic Sans relative to "serious" fonts. That does not mean that Comic Sans is useless, of course. It's a great choice when you publish text that you do not want people to believe.
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 16:42 · Score: 0

They probably wouldn't care so much when you're publishing your companies record profit in comic sans.
They wouldn't care that you announce record profits in a font that screams out "this is not to be taken seriously folks!!" You think?!
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 18:26 · Score: 1

Comic Sans is hated for legitimate reasons. In fact, read this by the creator of Comic Sans and look at the image at the bottom. The Comic Sans style can be done right (Chalkboard is effectively Comic Sans without the bad choices) but Comic Sans doesn't do it right.

People hate Comic Sans because it's a shitty fucking font, not because they're hopeless typography nerds. Get over yourself.
Re:Comic Sans by Rande · 2017-05-22 19:50 · Score: 1

And against smoking. It took decades longer for Germany and Japan to even start cracking down on smokers because whenever it was brought up, it was 'yeah, Hitler was against smoking too'.
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 19:58 · Score: 0

It's also easier to read for dyslexics. As a handwritten font, Comic Sans is a good one, but as a presentation font it's horrible.
Re:Comic Sans by jandersen · 2017-05-22 20:00 · Score: 1

"The hoi polloi" is like saying "the La Brea tar pits" or "The big Rio Grande river".
IOW a high-brow version of stuttering?
Re:Comic Sans by Maritz · 2017-05-22 20:22 · Score: 1

It quickly became a way to separate those with typographical sophistication from the hoi polloi.
"The hoi polloi" is like saying "the La Brea tar pits" or "The big Rio Grande river".
Thanks for the heads up, but I intend to discard this information so it doesn't start bothering me as well. That's pretty much the only usage of that that you see.

--
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Re:Comic Sans by Maritz · 2017-05-22 20:23 · Score: 1

News papers are basically dead.
Sadly not dead enough. In the UK, they still pick election winners.

--
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Re:Comic Sans by TuringTest · 2017-05-22 20:28 · Score: 2

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.

--
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Re:Comic Sans by jawtheshark · 2017-05-22 21:09 · Score: 1

The best argument I heard for Comic Sans is that -apparently- is it easier to read for dyslexics. I don't know whether it's true, but if so, I can really understand the use in many contexts.

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Re: Comic Sans by Z00L00K · 2017-05-22 21:13 · Score: 1

The ceefax font.

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If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Re: Comic Sans by Z00L00K · 2017-05-22 21:20 · Score: 1

Which just shows that he wasn't entirely bad.
But I can't help wondering about if his real revenge came through the VW bug, one of the more dangerous cars ever made.

--
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Re: Comic Sans by Z00L00K · 2017-05-22 21:27 · Score: 1

It,s not as shitty as some of the fonts that 'require' cleartype. They either looks fuzzy with cleartype on or uneven with cleartype off. Luckily uBlock allows those shitty fonts to be circumvented.
And don't say that my computer isn't tuned for 'best graphical experience', because it doesn't help at all, it's still fuzzy.

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If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Re: Comic Sans by Z00L00K · 2017-05-22 21:29 · Score: 1

Buttericks, you must be joking: https://www.buttericks.se/

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If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Re: Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 21:30 · Score: 0

This was as inevitable as it is banal.
Re: Comic Sans by TuringTest · 2017-05-22 22:17 · Score: 1

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.

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Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Re:Comic Sans by sudon't · 2017-05-22 22:44 · Score: 1

I don't know why everyone hates comic sans...

It’s fine, as long as you use it in thought and speech bubbles.

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-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 23:26 · Score: 0

+1 for 'douchitude'.
Re:Comic Sans by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-23 00:14 · Score: 0

Zapf dingbats - probably the best named font
Re:Comic Sans by ilsaloving · 2017-05-23 07:44 · Score: 1

Where "democratized" can be defined as "turned to shit".
Seriously. Almost every single concept that becomes common, gets completely destroyed of it's original meaning and intended purposes.
The most recent and easiest example is "fake news". It used to mean news that was fabricated out of whole cloth, sometimes with just enough truth to make it seem plausable.
meme. Then: a brainworm idea or concept that spread like crazy through a population like wildfire, similarly to a virus. Now: Any stupid image with words added to it
hacker. Then: Someone who cobbled something together, usually computer related. Now: Took on a mutilated meaning of "Cracker" and now means using a remote computer system in an unauthorized way, even if that access was accomplished by a typo.
Terminology of any kind gets completely distorted, if not destroyed, the moment it hits mass interest, and the people who know better DO get pissed, and rightfully so, because something that they cared deeply about has been quickly and irrevocably ruined before their eyes.
Re:Comic Sans by maestroX · 2017-05-23 08:19 · Score: 1

I love to annoy Font Nazis, and that will be my last opportunity.

According to the article, you should use Fraktur.
Re:Comic Sans by hman · 2017-05-24 19:24 · Score: 1

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."
Google is your friend (sometimes), look for this:
so you need a typeface
That infographic helps a lot for a starter.

Deeper Subject by Thelasko · 2017-05-22 08:05 · Score: 3, Interesting

I thought the article was going to be about how a capital "I" and a lowercase "L" look the same in some fonts and really messes up your code. I've had it happen before... Il

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One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".

Re:Deeper Subject by ShanghaiBill · 2017-05-22 08:12 · Score: 3, Interesting

I thought the article was going to be about how a capital "I" and a lowercase "L" look the same
Even worse are the old people that learned to type on manual typewriters, and use a lowercase "L" instead of a one.
Re:Deeper Subject by Thelasko · 2017-05-22 08:20 · Score: 1

...or "O" and zero. O0!

--
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Re:Deeper Subject by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 09:24 · Score: 1

Happened in Mario Sunshine for the GameCube. For those unaware, it's a platforming game set on a tropical island that somehow has an Italian feel to it. The locals (called Pianta, lit. "plant" iirc) have a troublemaker who's name is Il Piantissimo (a portmanteau for 'pianissimo' (soft) and pianta), who you must race. To those who wouldn't recognize the patterns of romantic languages, it might look like the level name is II (two) Piantissimo and leave you scratching your head on the significance of "two" at the beginning of the name.
Of course it's only a capital i and a lowercase L, but the font choice was a bit confusing:
https://us.ixquick-proxy.com/do/show_picture.pl?l=english&rais=1&oiu=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FsnIg3Xk-J4A%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg&sp=67d802d65681aa07b1df761ec25d4575
Apologies for the proxy link but I couldn't get it to give me a raw, correct URL.
Re:Deeper Subject by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 10:26 · Score: 0

I spent a fair number of hours recoding a program for my prof. HE had another student key it from an old article published in a geology journal that was "typeset" using a typewriter that used the lower case L for the number 1. Turns out, it actually beneficial to understand how programs work when doing this kind of work.
Re:Deeper Subject by freeze128 · 2017-05-22 11:38 · Score: 1

My mother has an old manual typewriter that doesn't even *HAVE* a one. You are expected to use a lowercase L.
Re: Deeper Subject by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 12:22 · Score: 0

I use the lower case L for one in instances where I am entering numerical data in a spreadsheet and I want to screw it up for somebody who will later try to calculate uding the values. It's good for lab data that some Six Sigma fuck is goingâ to mess with later. It figuratively stains their black belt back to yellow.
Re:Deeper Subject by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 13:09 · Score: 0

The link to the raw image is right there in the URL...
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/snIg3Xk-J4A/maxresdefault.jpg
Re:Deeper Subject by Nethead · 2017-05-22 16:09 · Score: 2

This is also why there is no US cent symbol on a keyboard. We use to just type c and then backspace and over-type the /. (see what I did there?)

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Re:Deeper Subject by Pfhorrest · 2017-05-22 19:01 · Score: 1

There's a cent symbol on my keyboard. It's the same key as the dollar symbol, except instead of shift you hold option.

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"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Re:Deeper Subject by KozmoStevnNaut · 2017-05-22 20:08 · Score: 1

Or you could just use the currency sign, the most useless of all characters. It's so useless, I can't even type it here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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Eat the rich.
Re:Deeper Subject by houghi · 2017-05-23 00:00 · Score: 1

So it is old people that write the subtitles I download? Darn.

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Re:Deeper Subject by Big+Hairy+Ian · 2017-05-23 00:13 · Score: 1

I thought the article was going to be about how a capital "I" and a lowercase "L" look the same in some fonts and really messes up your code. I've had it happen before... Il
Just don't mention the Greek question mark

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Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Re:Deeper Subject by stoatwblr · 2017-05-23 02:26 · Score: 1

My old portable didn't have zero either.
Re:Deeper Subject by freeze128 · 2017-05-23 03:53 · Score: 1

Then why is there no US cent symbol on current US PC keyboards? You can't just overtype like that in a word processor.
Re:Deeper Subject by cellocgw · 2017-05-23 04:16 · Score: 1

This is also why there is no US cent symbol on a keyboard. We use to just type c and then backspace and over-type the /. (see what I did there?)
There's a cent symbol on my keyboard. It's the same key as the dollar symbol, except instead of shift you hold option.
Variant of Poe's Law, I guess. I can't tell whether this is a lame joke or you're a complete idiot.

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Re:Deeper Subject by Nethead · 2017-05-23 06:11 · Score: 1

Or the degree symbol, which I would think would be more handy.

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-- I have a private email server in my basement.

Busted by Tulsa_Time · 2017-05-22 08:05 · Score: -1, Offtopic

Hillary Clinton ran for president with a slick logo befitting a Fortune 100 company. It had detractors, but I think we’ll remember it fondly as a symbol of what could have been—clarity, professionalism, and restraint.

Donald Trump countered with a garish baseball cap that looked like it had been designed in a Google Doc by the man himself. This proved to be an effective way of selling Trump’s unique brand.

Political Hackery.

--
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy

Re:Busted by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:24 · Score: -1

you are retarded
Re:Busted by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:29 · Score: 0

Hillary Clinton ran for president with a slick logo befitting a Fortune 100 company. It had detractors, but I think we’ll remember it fondly as a symbol of what could have been—clarity, professionalism, and restraint.
Donald Trump countered with a garish baseball cap that looked like it had been designed in a Google Doc by the man himself. This proved to be an effective way of selling Trump’s unique brand.
Political Hackery.
Funny enough I cannot even remember a thing about Hillarys' logo. So no matter how ground-breakingly amazing you think it was, I'll bet 95% of non-hillary supporters probably wouldn't even remember enough of the logo to describe one bit of it.
In fact I just looked it up as I sat here trying my best to recall what her logo was. Are you talking about the H with a right arrow? If so, wtff, did I just fall for a sarcastic post?
Re:Busted by Shatrat · 2017-05-22 08:33 · Score: 1

a slick logo befitting a Fortune 100 company
...like Goldman Sachs?

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09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Re:Busted by istartedi · 2017-05-22 08:34 · Score: 3, Interesting

It was supposed to represent "moving forward". The irony of it pointing to the right wasn't lost on Bernie supporters. It also looked like a house that fell over between the Twin Towers.

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For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Re:Busted by nickittynickname · 2017-05-22 08:37 · Score: 1

This post isn't off topic. He's quoting the article, he just didn't use quotes. The article is beyond stupid, they managed to find a way to turn font's into modern US politics. What a waste of time.
Re:Busted by swb · 2017-05-22 08:48 · Score: 1

I think he encapsulated what a lot of people *didn't* like about Clinton -- slick, and the apparent product of a Fortune 100 company. Perhaps it's exactly part of what worked *against* Hillary, appearing too slick, too corporate, too produced and artificial.
I don't know what to say about Trump's "logo" other than it was just a generic slogan, but maybe that said "genuine" to some people.
Re:Busted by CheeseTroll · 2017-05-22 09:00 · Score: 1

Does it also bother Bernie supporters that western languages are written from left to right? Or that non-Brits drive on the right side of the road? Or that ~90% of humans are right-handed? Or that many people say "right" in lieu of "correct"?

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A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
Re:Busted by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 09:24 · Score: 0

Hillary Clinton ran for president with a slick logo befitting a fascist dictator

FTFY
Re:Busted by OakDragon · 2017-05-22 09:26 · Score: 2

I noticed a lot of "parodies" of Trump's hat around. And almost exclusively from people that would not be admirers. When I saw this "MAKE AMERICA RAGE AGAIN" cap, pretty much straightforward and unironic in its copying, I thought Trump's messaging might be on point.
There was even a girl attacked because her "make bitcoin great again" cap was apparently mistaken for the real deal.

--
Dark Reflection
Re:Busted by arth1 · 2017-05-22 10:03 · Score: 1

It was supposed to represent "moving forward".
I thought it was based on the FedEx logo, where the hidden arrow is the key element. And thus signalling "we're rip-offs".
Re:Busted by king+neckbeard · 2017-05-22 10:05 · Score: 1

It didn't bother them so much as illustrate their perspective through a visual pun.

--
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Re:Busted by hey! · 2017-05-22 10:08 · Score: 1

I thought it was interesting the author didn't mention the similarity to the Obama logo. Hillary's logo had a strong family resemblance to that.
If you go back for the past few presidential elections, campaign logos take standard form: the presidential and vp candidate's names decorated with graphical elements borrowed from the flag. Obama's campaign logo was designed by a an actual branding company, and they chose to turn his initial into a kind of brand mark. Hillary copied this, and it had to be conscious because it's not the usual way.
Now you may personally hate Obama, but it's hard to deny he's an extremely accomplished campaigner. Both times out he ran remarkably slick, tech-savvy operations. In retrospect, Hillary Clinton's campaign had a kind of cargo cult feel to it, trying to recapture what Obama accomplished by copying the novel things he did.
What she never did was match Obama's mastery of the traditional methods of campaigning, not that that would be easy. There few were better at it than Obama. Reagan, sure. Maybe Bill Clinton. You've got to be able to go out twenty or more times a week with the same old stump speech and fire up a crowd. You've got command attention; to drive the narrative of the campaign, or at the very least not fade into the background because all eyes are on your opponent, even if that's for the wrong reasons.
In the end it may have been Hillary's over-reliance on analytics that doomed her candidacy. The numbers said she didn't need to campaign in certain swing states, and she let the numbers overrule the human intelligence she was getting from those places.
I wonder whether her consciousness of her weakness on the stump may have influenced this decision. But even if you're a lousy at tub-thumping, showing up to ask for someone's vote counts for a lot.

--
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Re:Busted by meta-monkey · 2017-05-22 10:15 · Score: 3, Interesting

I don't know what to say about Trump's "logo" other than it was just a generic slogan, but maybe that said "genuine" to some people.
I liked Trump's slogan because it actually told you to do something. It immediately involves the listener in the process. You can respond by agreeing ("I would like to help Make America Great Again"), or by disagreeing ("I don't want to make America great again") or by rejecting the premise ("America already is/never was great"). But it contained a call to action that forces one to engage. Compare this to other slogans:
Clinton: "I'm With Her." There's no direct call to action there. There's no goal. There's no evaluation of the current situation or a possible future. It's empty.
Jill Stein: "It's in our hands." No shit. There's nothing to really disagree with there, but also nothing for you to do. There is no engagement.
Marco Rubio: "A New American Century." What the fuck does that mean, Marco? What am I supposed to do with the new American century?
Ted Cruz: "Reigniting the Promise of America." Well that sounds nice, but there's nothing to engage me or call me to action. Also it's passive. The "promise of America" sounds like asking what my country can do for me, not what I can do for my country.
Carly Fiorina: "New Possibilities. Real Leadership." Now that's generic and meaningless.
Jeb Bush: "Jeb!" Man, fuck you Jeb. Low energy.
So, I'd say Trump's slogan was far less generic than anybody else's, and at least it said something, and required the listener to evaluate the call to action and accept or reject it.

--
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Re:Busted by shadowknot · 2017-05-22 10:22 · Score: 1

There was a vendor at a recent conference handing out "Make Mainframe Great Again" hats, I have one in my cube. It's blue so less likely to get confused with the real deal but I'll admit that the thought has crossed my mind that it may be mistaken as tacit support if I were to wear it in public.
Re:Busted by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 10:55 · Score: 0

Actually that last one bothers me...not for the political implications but because it isn't correct to use 'right' when you mean 'correct'. Not that it is 'verboten' since so many things in English aren't 'hard & fast' rules...just that it makes understanding harder. Besides which 'right' implies a 'value judgement' to me whereas 'correct' means something is more 'black & white'
Re: Busted by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 12:28 · Score: 0

Something clearly bothers you. Have you had trouble removing Hillary's logo from the back of your car? You should have stuck it on the bumper, not a painted area.
Re: Busted by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 13:05 · Score: 0

Absolutely correct. "I'm with her" is a passive statement that places the listener in a submissive position compared to the subject which is a single person. "Make America great again" elevates America as the subject and calls the listener to participate.
Re:Busted by swb · 2017-05-22 13:07 · Score: 2

"I'm with Her" struck me as having something of a feminist conceit to it, as if you were a Hillary supporter just because she was a woman and not because of her ideas.
Re:Busted by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 13:49 · Score: 0

Yea, it would have been totally reasonable if, instead of a bitcoin hat, she had a Trump hat on, and was attacked. Obviously women who support Trump should be attacked (they are worse than fighting back), and men who support Trump should be attacked in numbers.
Hey, does anyone know why the polls were wrong?
Re:Busted by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 14:08 · Score: 0

There was a vendor at a recent conference handing out "Make Mainframe Great Again" hats, I have one in my cube. It's blue so less likely to get confused with the real deal but I'll admit that the thought has crossed my mind that it may be mistaken as tacit support if I were to wear it in public.
The problem isn't that your hat might be mistaken as a MAGA hat. The problem is that half the country is so ****** in the head that they would violently attack a person on sight just for wearing a MAGA hat.
Re:Busted by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 14:13 · Score: 1

"I'm with Her" struck me as having something of a feminist conceit to it, as if you were a Hillary supporter just because she was a woman and not because of her ideas.
I think you just summed up Hillary's entire campaign, message, and platform all in one sentence.
Re:Busted by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 14:21 · Score: 0

I don't think populists even use the term "Fortune 100 company."
They've heard of Fortune 500, maybe just stick to only using that as a general purpose "fat cats" association?
Re:Busted by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 14:24 · Score: 0

I also disliked the slogan, it seemed patronizing.
I wasn't voting for her because she's a woman, I was voting for her because she's a Democrat. And in the primary, her only rival was an Independent!
I'd have preferred a slogan that was a lot "slicker," a lot less fake-folksy. I don't want Yuck-Yuck from my politicians, and if I did, I'd be a Republican.
Re:Busted by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 15:56 · Score: 0

Besides which 'right' implies a 'value judgement' to me whereas 'correct' means something is more 'black & white'
Right ...
Re:Busted by TigerPlish · 2017-05-22 17:46 · Score: 1

The original had a red arrow piercing the "H."
Red = Republican, no?

--
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Re:Busted by Pfhorrest · 2017-05-22 19:17 · Score: 2

"Correct" has a cognate of "right" as it's root. They both imply value judgements, be they alethic (the right thing to believe, i.e. truth) or deontic (the right thing to do, i.e. good). And FWIW, both of those kinds of judgement can be either "black & white" or "shades of grey".
("Right" as in the direction comes from that same root too; your "right hand" is literally your "good hand". All of them come from an even older sense still found in "right angle", a sense meaning "straight", which in turn also comes from the same root. A bunch of other roots share this same pattern: social norms vs surface normals, orthogonal vs orthodox, a ruler as in a king vs a ruler as in a straight edge, etc. ["Regal" and "royal" and other words relating to kings come from the same root too]. And "regular" and "normal" both originally meant right/normative/correct long before they meant common/typical/average).

--
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Re: Busted by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-23 01:26 · Score: 0

I know one fucktard that got an H-> tattoo a couple months too soon. Of course, most Hillary! support was very shallow -- i live in a liberal neightborhood in a liberal city but there were more bumper stickers and yard signs for fringe candidates (female circumcision party, nambla party, etc) than Hillary. And none of them have moved to Canada yet, although I guess they did have a parade/temper tantrum of some sort.
Re:Busted by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-23 01:31 · Score: 0

lol, "The progressive with the pussy" would have been a more honest campaign slogan.
Re:Busted by aicrules · 2017-05-23 02:10 · Score: 1

The hillary/donald paragraphs were from the article. The GP's actual post was the subject line "Busted" and the message "Political Hackery". This is the GP saying the "article" author's bias was showing.
Re:Busted by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-25 13:12 · Score: 0

The original had a red arrow piercing the "H." ... Red = Republican, no?
Yeah get it? The Repub candidate will skewer Hillary (she was just playing her part). Just more dark Illuminati humor. They were letting on ahead of time who was going to win the election "count".

So Basically.. by CajunArson · 2017-05-22 08:05 · Score: 1, Insightful

Use the SJW-approved typefaces or your Hitler.

Oh, and since Fraktur was both enforced by the Nazis and banned by the Nazis, you are an evil part the patriarchy that needs to be purged in the name of enlightened SJW "inclusion" if you use it or if you don't use it.

--
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.

Re:So Basically.. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:09 · Score: 2, Informative

your != you're
Re:So Basically.. by ganjadude · 2017-05-22 08:19 · Score: 2

no no no, its just a different font. totally correct the way it was

--
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Re:So Basically.. by CajunArson · 2017-05-22 08:35 · Score: -1

Stop repressing me with your white-male-cisgendered repression.

--
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Re:So Basically.. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 11:03 · Score: 0

with your hitler
Re:So Basically.. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 13:47 · Score: 0

But I don't even have a Hitler, you (in?)sensitive clod!
Re:So Basically.. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 14:36 · Score: 0

He's not stupid, he just thinks in Comic Sans.
Re: So Basically.. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 20:29 · Score: 1

Have you heard? "SJW" is out, "baizou" is in. It's a Chinese insult that translates as "white left", used in China to malign what we hitherto have called "SJW".
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1047989.shtml
Baizou is a better insult because it's pronounceable. Because it denies the once-honorable term "social justice" to a movement that's violently anti-social and constantly pushing for new injustices to be perpetrated against the working people. Because it's international and backed by a coherent culture, making it harder for the SJW propagandists to subvert.
In summary: fuck the elitist authoritarian perverted racist baizou. Make America great again.

Reading way to far into buts of propaganda by negRo_slim · 2017-05-22 08:07 · Score: 1, Insightful

There is nothing overblown or dramatized about this article, nothing at all. I mean it's vaguely interesting but seems to miss the forest for the trees and blathering about colonialism isn't doing it any favors either.

--
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days

Re:Reading way to far into buts of propaganda by ShanghaiBill · 2017-05-22 08:53 · Score: 5, Informative

There was a recent article in the Economist about publishing in the Arab World. With the turmoil in Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, Arabic publishing is dying. In Beirut bookstores, 40% of the books are in English, 40% in French, and only 20% in Arabic. Part of this is because Arabic is designed to be written by hand, and not printed. The shape of individual "letters" depends on the preceding and following "letters", much like English cursive, except even worse.
Re:Reading way to far into buts of propaganda by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 11:33 · Score: 1

Arabic is not alone in being difficult to print. Japanese and Chinese languages have a problem of far too many characters to be easily used with a typewriter/keyboard. Japan got around this by creating a reduced character-set intermediary. (Apparently, in the 1400s Korea recognized the problem with the thousands-of-character Chinese language and created a 28-letter alphabet.)
(Also, I'm surprised no one's mentioned it, but Hillary's "Arrow-H" logo works perfectly for an "I'm with Stupid" t-shirt.)
Re:Reading way to far into buts of propaganda by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 14:31 · Score: 0

Part of this is because Arabic is designed to be written by hand, and not printed. The shape of individual "letters" depends on the preceding and following "letters", much like English cursive, except even worse.
From a software perspective that seems like an exceptionally small impediment. It would only take one graduate student at one University to write some software that renders the text using an enhanced font set. Perhaps there is some reason why a person in such a position would be unwilling to release such a tool to the public? Perhaps the eagerness of extremists to recruit, and their strong presence at Arabic learning institutions is somehow connected to the problem.
Or, maybe native Arabic speakers just prefer to read in French?
Re:Reading way to far into buts of propaganda by mcswell · 2017-05-22 15:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

That's what the early Arabic fonts did, but those who know Arabic well (I don't) tell me it didn't look good. And that's the Naskh style, which Arabic and many other languages that use Perso-Arabic script use. There's also the Nasta'liq style, which is still more calligraphic, and much harder to encode as a font. Urdu and Punjabi use Nasta'liq, and maybe others as well. (Persian used to.) Indeed, it wasn't long ago (a decade?) that some Urdu newspapers were written out by calligraphers before being printed by photo-offset. (I hope I have my terms right...)
Re:Reading way to far into buts of propaganda by ShanghaiBill · 2017-05-22 16:06 · Score: 2

Or, maybe native Arabic speakers just prefer to read in French?
This is one of the points made in the cited Economist article. Books written in Arabic mostly use a formal and archaic version of the language, that is so different from the informal vernacular that it is almost like a foreign language. Many parents do indeed think that their children's time is better spent learning French (in Lebanon, Algeria and Morocco) or English (everywhere else).
As fewer people learn formal Arabic, fewer Arabic books are published, which reduces the incentive to learn to read it even more. So it is in a death spiral.
Re:Reading way to far into buts of propaganda by hackertourist · 2017-05-22 20:21 · Score: 2

This is a solved problem. Unicode defines 5 code points for each Arabic letter, one for each specific form (initial, medial, final, isolated) and one general form. Software that supports Arabic takes the general form as input, and uses a simple algorithm to determine which of the 4 specific forms has to be used depending on where in a word the letter occurs.
Lots of software supports Arabic (I've used Word and InDesign to create cursive Arabic and Farsi).
One comment I got from Arabic translators is that the font matters: Arial Unicode MS contains all the Arabic glyphs, but they are rendered as geometric shapes: perfect constant-radius arcs, vertical lines. This looks alien to them.
They much preferred SeriaArabic, a font that looks more like handwriting (with e.g. subtle variations in line thickness, not-quite-vertical lines, variable-radius arcs).
Re:Reading way to far into buts of propaganda by CanEHdian · 2017-05-23 00:29 · Score: 1

(Also, I'm surprised no one's mentioned it, but Hillary's "Arrow-H" logo works perfectly for an "I'm with Stupid" t-shirt.)
Is that your public opinion, or your private opinion? *ducks*

--
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
Re:Reading way to far into buts of propaganda by Kielistic · 2017-05-23 06:07 · Score: 1

That's not what grad students do...
Re:Reading way to far into buts of propaganda by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-24 03:43 · Score: 0

That's not all that grad students do, but it's certainly a part of what they do. I did stuff like that as a grad student.

OCR by thegreatbob · 2017-05-22 08:10 · Score: 2

Force OCR-A on everyone now; this'll make it easier for our new robotic overlords to interpret our welcomings...

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There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...

Nothing sudden about it by john5819 · 2017-05-22 08:11 · Score: 0

"Suddenly, tons of people who don't work in design..." Huh? People have always had different, and often strong, opinions about typography. It simply boils down to most people knowing that something either looks good to them or it doesn't. As for the rest of the story - what a load of bullshit. Words can certainly have a life or death result but not so for typography. No matter what font you choose, it just isn't going to hurt anyone beyond possibly offending them. Nor is a font ever going to save a life.

Re:Nothing sudden about it by edittard · 2017-05-22 08:17 · Score: 2

I don't know. What if you couldn't read a sign or a label and drove off a cliff or poisoned yourself?

--
At the bottom of the /. main page it says 'Yesterday's News'. Well they got that right.
Re:Nothing sudden about it by john5819 · 2017-05-22 09:21 · Score: 0

Yep, I can see that would be a potential problem for blind people driving cars or with no sense of smell. I'm struggling to see how it's related to typography though.
Re:Nothing sudden about it by king+neckbeard · 2017-05-22 10:12 · Score: 1

You'd have the same kind of potential pitfalls as with typos. Important message is read incorrectly, and a dangerous decision is made. Very much an edge case, covered by "before you make a sign for averting danger, make sure you can read it."

--
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Re:Nothing sudden about it by edittard · 2017-05-22 10:56 · Score: 1

You don't have to be blind to be unable to read a sign. There are poisons which are odourless and tasteless.
Any other bits of your ignorance I can chisel away at while I'm here?

--
At the bottom of the /. main page it says 'Yesterday's News'. Well they got that right.
Re:Nothing sudden about it by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 12:21 · Score: 0

Fun fact, if it's truly dangerous, you don't use words, thus typeset is unimportant. Words don't help the illiterate. There's a reason why the universal label for poison is a skull and crossbones.

Jesus... by Frosty+Piss · 2017-05-22 08:15 · Score: 2

... Font Nazi...

--
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.

Re:Jesus... by AmiMoJo · 2017-05-22 21:36 · Score: 2

If you bothered to read TFA you would see that the author makes a valid, if slightly obvious point. Certain fonts have become associated with certain ideas. Blackletter is associated with Nazism and the alt-right, because Nazis make extensive use of it as a kind of shorthand. Rather than put an actual swastika on the front of your magazine or web site, which might well get it booted or make it not safe to read in public, just use that font. If anyone questions it, berate them for claiming that a font is a hate symbol etc.
It's a lot like Pepe the Frog. "It's just a cartoon" people say, but actually he has become code for alt-right ideas that usually involve blaming Jews for something.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Jesus... by Kielistic · 2017-05-23 06:12 · Score: 1

Asserting that guilt by association is a valid thing does not make it not a fallacy...

Fonts are racist! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:16 · Score: 0

What nonsense will Medium come up next? I can hardly wait!

Why is this news for nerds? That's just some social "justIce" rag blabbering poliltical ideology.

Re: Fonts are racist! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 20:35 · Score: 0

Apparently /. is now owned by baizou. I, for one, miss the reign of CmdrTaco.

Offended by fonts now? by cyberchondriac · 2017-05-22 08:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

This article is just trashy, nothing to see here. So, everything with an old English/German font means "Nazi" now, does it? It couldn't possibly just reflect medieval culture, or Frankenstein, or Dracula, or harken back to any number of other things more mundane in the past several hundred years. Nope, it's Hitler. I guess, if you're really that shallow.
But nothing is more telling of the actual SJ undercurrent and intent of this article than these last few paragraphs, strangely comparing Clinton's and Trump's campaign logos:

Hillary Clinton ran for president with a slick logo befitting a Fortune 100 company. It had detractors, but I think we’ll remember it fondly as a symbol of what could have been—clarity, professionalism, and restraint.
Donald Trump countered with a garish baseball cap that looked like it had been designed in a Google Doc by the man himself. This proved to be an effective way of selling Trump’s unique brand.

I guess even fonts offend these people now. They're losing their minds.

--

Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.

Re:Offended by fonts now? by sexconker · 2017-05-22 08:22 · Score: 1

#MFGA
Re:Offended by fonts now? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:27 · Score: -1

Yea, it's the usual bullshit: Hillary good, Trump bad, Arabs are victims and westerners are evil.

I guess even fonts offend these people now.
I'm offended too, that so much of that idiotic drivel is given a platform on /.
Re:Offended by fonts now? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:37 · Score: 0

Garish: obtrusively bright and showy; lurid
Had to look that up to see what I was missing since I'm not a scrabble enthusiast. Surprisingly the pictures shown in the article do seem to reflect the opposite of the shitpost written about them.
Trump - B&W, simple...clarity, professionalism, and restraint (maybe not).
Clinton - Very Simple...bright, showy, perhaps obtrusively. Does not convey the purpose or what it's about in any meaningful way.
Re:Offended by fonts now? by Scarred+Intellect · 2017-05-22 08:58 · Score: 3, Informative

I particularly liked

We take it for granted that we can type any word with a keyboard, but really, you should check your anglophone privilege.
Never mind the inconsistent voice and poor writing overall...
Re:Offended by fonts now? by fiver-hoo · 2017-05-22 08:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

It's not just no longer "news for nerds" it's not even fucking news at all. Just leftist blathering. Conquest's second law strikes again.
Re:Offended by fonts now? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 09:10 · Score: 0

Yeah. The article:
"Blackletter is the toothbrush mustache of fonts"
Okay, sure. The Nazis even tainted an ancient symbol of Buddhism. No surprise the cover font of Mein Kampf has a bad reputation.
"Evil Europeans fucked up Arabic"
Well, they did what they could to make printing presses work for Arabic. Being able to mass produce books in your language is a huge aid to learning, they just did it clumsily.
"OH GOD WHY DIDN'T HILLARY WIN"
Yeah those awful fly-over states.
Re:Offended by fonts now? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 09:22 · Score: 0

That whooshing noise was the point sailing over your head.
Re:Offended by fonts now? by AthanasiusKircher · 2017-05-22 10:51 · Score: 3, Informative

And never mind it's mostly not even about fonts, but rather different language scripts. The vast majority of the article compares German blackletter (not so much English blackletter), Arabic, Cyrillic, Croatian, etc.
Yes, Arabic looks quite different from Germanic Fraktur and Russian Cyrillic. And...??
Different fonts (a.k.a. "typefaces" for the older crowd) are about things like x-height and whether you use serifs and proportional vs. monospace and descenders/ascenders and use of text vs. display weights. TFA doesn't seem concerned with most of that at all, instead focusing on completely different letterforms in different languages, which isn't really a font issue as much as a linguistic one. The only real typeface issues that are brought up at the end of the article contrast the bizarre abstract Hillary logo with the simple script used for "Make America Great Again!" for Trump hats. Except again -- that's really not much of a "font" issue (though yes, a font was chosen for each) as a complex typographical design difference. One is creating a weird logo vaguely based on a letterform; the other is an actual sentence that needs to be typeset in a recognizable script.
Broadly speaking, the article is somewhat about typography. But it isn't really about fonts, so I'm not sure what they're in the title at all.
Re:Offended by fonts now? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 11:03 · Score: 0

So, everything with an old English/German font means "Nazi" now, does it?
Actually, fascism in general is probably more closely associated with sans-serif typefaces.
Re:Offended by fonts now? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 16:09 · Score: 0

I stopped reading at:

check your anglophone privilege.
Your language is screwed up and that's my problem because...hey, remember when this used to be a tech site? I wonder what's new with linux.
Re:Offended by fonts now? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 16:28 · Score: 0

Has anyone else noticed how the right have a tendency to take their problems with the left and double down on them? I'm no leftist (no rightist either), but this is an example of a leftist whining about history, followed by a rightist whining about a leftist whining about history. You do realize whining won't change historical fact right? It just makes you look like a petulant child. It's no wonder I can't hire right wingers for technical jobs; their worldview is that of a permanent victim, their code doesn't compile because the computer is wrong, not because they are. Sure some leftists do this as well, but in my 30+ year of hiring technical professionals, not even a single right winger has passed the logic test. Perhaps if the right weren't so distrustful of STEM and were willing to challenge their preconceived worldviews they could qualify for the jobs that are available.
Re:Offended by fonts now? by dunkelfalke · 2017-05-22 19:58 · Score: 1

Which is ironic because that the "nazi" blackletter font predates nazis by several centuries and used to be the standard German font before Hitler made a law that all official correspondence had to be written in standard Latin script, not blackletter.

--
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Re:Offended by fonts now? by hackertourist · 2017-05-22 20:29 · Score: 2

The issue can be framed differently: I Can Text You A Pile of Poo, But I Can't Write My Name
Re:Offended by fonts now? by nine-times · 2017-05-23 02:36 · Score: 1

Oh, I think we found the snowflake with hurt feelings. Jimmies have been rustled. Quick, where's the safe space?
Re:Offended by fonts now? by cyberchondriac · 2017-05-23 06:14 · Score: 1

You realize that's the equivalent of saying, "I'm rubber and you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you"...?
Well I guess I found the snowflake that gets butthurt when confronted with common sense annoyance over the lunacy of extreme progressive rantings. Next you know, they'll be banning certain fonts, like they do free speech and any other symbol of the week they denote as "hate". You're cool with that? Of course you are, so long as it reflects your PoV. Maybe I'll start writing conservative mantras in chalk with Blackletter at the nearest college campus and watch them go in total lockdown mode.

--

Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Re:Offended by fonts now? by cyberchondriac · 2017-05-23 06:15 · Score: 1

We have the best fonts, I'll tell you.

--

Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.

We should have stopped at 7 bit ASCII by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:19 · Score: 0

... a long time ago.

Immune by avandesande · 2017-05-22 08:20 · Score: 2

I have a 'wooden eye', you can have five different fonts on a page and I wont notice it, unless it is wingdings...

--
love is just extroverted narcissism

Re:Immune by Sir+Holo · 2017-05-22 08:40 · Score: 1

I have a 'wooden eye', you can have five different fonts on a page and I wont notice it, unless it is wingdings...
Five? I pity you.
Or hey, maybe you're lucky, because bad typography seems to be the rule these days.
Re:Immune by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 10:27 · Score: 0

Same here. "Font blindness", I call it. The only distinction my eye can detect is whether some precious dweeb wasted way too much time deciding to use something other than Arial or Courier New.
Re:Immune by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 13:40 · Score: 0

Agreed. I can tell the difference between comic sans and some old german font with all the blocky letters that look the same, but for the rest they're just a bunch of characters all in a row. Probably helps that for the most part I write in latex, so the font is just whatever stylesheet x decides to use.

let me guess by Triklyn · 2017-05-22 08:21 · Score: 0

it's the patriarchy.

this reeks of someone exploring a new avenue of grievance. not everything needs to be interpreted in power hierarchies. and he's overreaching with some of his examples. yes, western powers decided that they'd preclude the arabs from finding peace by making it harder for them to text. well played. it couldn't be that the communications technologies were developed in the western world because western values allowed for scientific inquiry. nope... oppression.

yes, how it's presented can alter slightly a message. but the map is not the territory. neither the typeface, nor the words themselves are as dangerous or powerful as the thoughts behind them.

Re:let me guess by yuriklastalov · 2017-05-22 08:27 · Score: 0

To me it smacks of typography weenies trying desperately to convince the rest of the world that their autistic obsession with letter shapes has any bearing on, well anything whatsoever.
I think what we all really want to know is what the best typeface for rendering autistic screeching is.
Personally, I like the A E S T H E T I C version: R E E E E E E E E E E E E
Re:let me guess by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 09:52 · Score: 1

What is REALLY disturbing is that the people who write & think this stuff clearly think the presentation of a message is more important than the message itself. Seriously, if you write 'I love humanity' in 'Blackletter' is that really supposed to create a 'dog whistle' signaling of some kind that this REALLY means 'I love humanity except those damn JEWS!' (insert some 'other' group as desired).
And using an example of someone who created a font that automatically translates between 2 VERY similar languages is NOT a font 'typography' question it's a 'language translation' question! The person who wrote the article is so caught up in 'presentation' that the 'message' here was ENTIRELY lost on them. I'm from Canada, thus I use 'British English' spellings for a lot of words (colour vs color) doesn't mean I can't communicate with American's in whatever font I want!
Ultimately this is exactly the kind of shit you get when the people who talk about & accuse others of 'white privilege' or 'anglo privilege' etc. are EXACTLY the ones who have that mindset. They are the prejudiced ones and SO prejudiced in their thinking they'll do ANYTHING to cleanse themselves of 'dirty thoughts' about the uniqueness & value their own cultures added to the world ...part of the fun in living in a multi-cultural country/environment is meeting different people from all kinds of cultures & trying to learn about each other. Sharing the beauty of each other's unique culture, and yes that does mean recognizing all the cool things European cultures brought to 'the new world' (e.g. Canada & the US). Next thing you know though Shakespeare, Mozart, Bach etc. will all be proclaimed some kind of 'cultural oppression foisted on the world', rather than the beautiful art produced by genius level individuals that HAPPENED to come from a 'European culture'.
If focusing on the beauty of the Arabic 'calligraphy' that expresses their written language properly is more important than the message translates to 'kill all the infidels' I think something is being TOTALLY lost in translation (and no that is NOT a pun)!...and no I"m not saying all Arabic writing would say that but if knowing that some 'swoosh'/line or other artistic element changes 'love all the infidels' to 'kill all the infidels' THAN it's important to know that but we might also want a way to communicate that isn't so dependent on a misplaced artistic element. And THAT is in fact a beauty of English (and similar languages) where the font doesn't matter only the message does...the font may make it easier to read, or make it more 'artistically appealing' but the MESSAGE is exactly the same whether the font I used to type this is 'Times Roman' or 'Black Letter'.
Re:let me guess by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 10:13 · Score: 0

god damn you are retarded

Have we fallen so far as a society? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:23 · Score: 0

Where does this "microaggression" bullshit stop? Somehow we've gotten to the point that we're told by self-appointed unquestionable moral authorities no one asked for or wanted that our FONT CHOICES cause genocide or something equally insane.

Let's acknowledge this for what it really is: more Poe's Law grade hyped-up tempest in a teapot crap for virtue-signaling authoritarians to broadcast their virtue and brilliance to other people while telling those people what to do because they're so full of themselves that they think they're the arbiters of morality for all.

[font face="Chalkboard"] Fuck off. Everyone hates you. You are the friend in every friend group that nobody likes.[/font]

Archive link to avoid giving Backchannel clicks by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:25 · Score: 0

http://archive.is/9UTpW

Hack by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:27 · Score: 2, Interesting

My favorite font: Hack

Re:Hack by GuB-42 · 2017-05-23 07:47 · Score: 1

This is a font for coders, monospace, designed to limit confusion between similar looking characters (I, 1, l, |, ...).
There are plenty of them : consolas, inconsolata,... I personally use SourceCodePro. Like hack, it is also free and open source.

Now I Believe by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:31 · Score: 0

Don't believe him? He's got ample visual examples to prove it.

I went against /. tradition and RTFA, and I still didn't understand it. But you, you made me understand.

Kerning by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:32 · Score: 0

K e m i n g. I have to assume that was on purpose. Well trolled sir.

are we still doing fonts then? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:33 · Score: 4, Funny

I thought the world was moving to the use of emojis for all communication.

Fraktur is a terrible typeface by Sir+Holo · 2017-05-22 08:37 · Score: 2

Anyone who has read any historical Nazi-era documents will tell you that Fraktur, the Nazi's favorite Blackletter (gothic) typeface, is headache-inducing. Fraktur is ugly. All of those embellishments make it a struggle to differentiate between letters – kind of the opposite of what written text is supposed to do.

Oh, and Arial is a terrible font.

Re:Fraktur is a terrible typeface by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 09:24 · Score: 0

Fraktur is just for a few abstract math notations. It's obsolete for everything else.
Re:Fraktur is a terrible typeface by lgw · 2017-05-22 11:30 · Score: 1

Arial was great for low-dpi monitors back in the day. It also looked OK on a very low DPI printer. Helvetica needs the ability of the display/page to express some subtlety to come into its own.

--
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Re:Fraktur is a terrible typeface by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 14:17 · Score: 0

Indeed pretty much the only time most academics (at least at the mathsy end of things) give a damn about fonts is when typesetting equations. Then you want things as distinct as possible, so fraktur, mathbb, mathcal etc come into their own. Otherwise whatever latex decides to spit out is just fine.
Re:Fraktur is a terrible typeface by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-23 06:51 · Score: 0

Anyone who has read any historical Nazi-era documents will tell you that Fraktur, the Nazi's favorite Blackletter (gothic) typeface, is headache-inducing
That's apparently coincidental. The Nazis wanted to drop the font according to Wikipedia's reference in 1941. The real background for the Fraktur is in the Central and Northern Europe where it was used from the 16th century onward. This was the practical reason Nazis were using the typeface. It lost its luster as the economic and cultural realities drove adoption of common typefaces with the Western and Southern Europe.

Fraktur is ugly. All of those embellishments make it a struggle to differentiate between letters – kind of the opposite of what written text is supposed to do.
But it does look quite nice carved, embedded or etched on silver or polished steel.
Re:Fraktur is a terrible typeface by maestroX · 2017-05-23 08:55 · Score: 1

Arial was great for low-dpi monitors back in the day.

Exactly. It beats Helvetica at low point sizes whereas Helvetica rules on print/logo's.

It's not always the font, but sometimes it is by davidwr · 2017-05-22 08:39 · Score: 2

It's not always the font - it's frequently the historical baggage that goes with it, as demonstrated by his early examples of typography associated with Nazi Germany.

Sometimes it is the font. "Sharp, pointy" fonts like some of the Nazi-era examples he used may convey sharpness, strong boundaries, or even authority in many readers. A simple font that looks like a child's less-than-perfect crayon manuscript will likely remind people of children and all of the emotions that come with that.

It's not just fonts either. Pictures that remind people of a time and place that the racist wants to glorify can have the same effect. Hitler at the Berlin Olympics, famous Nazi scientists being given world-class awards, etc. do the trick.

--
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.

Load of CRAP by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:54 · Score: 1

Had to read the article to find out HOW a typeface could be a matter of 'life & death'...and as I suspected this is just MORE SJW bullshit. Confusing the typeface/format of the message with the message itself.

IF a typeface/glyph doesn't allow for an expression of a language in written form that is readable by someone who has knowledge of the language then it's not a good typeface. The article uses Arabic as a written language that uses 'artistic glyphs' that can change to provide who changes in meaning...this is apparently some kind of 'revelation'...we've been dealing with this in Chinese (simplified vs tradtional) for YEARS. This is not new & it's not about 'Anglophone privilege' for crying out loud! And just because the Nazi's took 'Blackletter' as their font doesn't mean the font itself is somehow 'tainted'.

The guy gives his own point of view away when he refers to Trump's hat as 'garish'...it's a ball-cap for crying out loud! This guys own 'elitism' is showing, including attempting to equate a LOGO with a 'typeface'...that Clinton assumed that her appeal was to 'smart, intelligent' people was HER mistake in assuming that people who disagree with her were 'unintelligent deplorables'...it is HER elitism, the elitism of her supporters and the writer of this article showing not whether or not the people who disagree with her were 'booger eating morons'!

In fact, this whole article can be boiled down to 'There is a war going on between people who think the presentation of a message matters versus those who believe the message matters'...the former are 'elitists' for whom actually having values & a message is hard, they have no substance it's all just 'show', which is why it appeals to Hollywood & New York types who think that it is better to 'virtue signal' then it is to actually HAVE the virtues they are signaling at the core of their beliefs. They don't actually believe the shit they say they say it only to avoid being labeled 'racist', 'sexist' or some other 'ist'...

a little interesting content by John.Banister · 2017-05-22 08:54 · Score: 1

It was interesting to learn about the existence of Mirsaal and Balkan Sans, but I'd rather have read about them in an article titled "Two attempts by font designers to help bridge cultural division." However, in both cases, I think there's more that the article didn't mention. The article talks about the difficulty of typing in Arabic, but when I think about computers and representing Arabic, I think of the kind of automatic transliteration that, for example, the Katib text editor does. It says Mirsaal looks for the right balance between Western and Arabic conventions, but doesn't describe any typographic specifics of what is being balanced, so you can't tell what is the nature of the compromise that it asserts is being achieved. Also, when I think of using the same glyphs to represent equivalent letters in the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, I notice that Noto Sans also does that, but no alternatives are mentioned by the article. The rest of the article also seemed to be at a "fluff" level of depth about subtopics that were less interesting.

This just in! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 08:55 · Score: 2

Chiropractors think all your ails are due to spinal problems, journalists think everyone uses Apple products, and graphic designers think which font used is very important.

new fascists, same as the old ones by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 09:03 · Score: 0

The next generation of fascists will not love geometric sans serifs as much as Mussolini did.

Going by Hillary's logo, they still do. Same ideas, same ideology, same visual language.

What BULLSHIT by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 09:07 · Score: 0

I’m not interested in whether Clinton or Trump had good logos. I’m interested in the different values they reveal. Clinton’s typography embodies the spirit of modernism and enlightenment values. It was designed to appeal to smart, progressive people who like visual puns. They appreciate the serendipity of an arrow that completes a lettermark while also symbolizing progress. In other words, coastal elites who like “design.” Trump’s typography speaks with a more primal, and seemingly earnest voice Clinton's typography "emodies the spirit of modernism and enlightenment values"!? You got all that from typeface?! It was an utterly uninspiring (if not stupid) logo that seemingly appears "progressive" because it has an arrow pointing to the right? (Which is a delicious schadeunfraude methodology of showing forward progression! ) Likewise Trump's typeface is "primal"?! If anything I think this article is demonstrative of the hubris that has befallen the world. We don't actually care about the words or their meaning anymore but what they LOOK like on the screen or page. A facebook-ized culture that is obsessed with style over substance, appearance over action and motivations over meaning. It will lead to nowhere good.

Re:What BULLSHIT by AlejandroTejadaC · 2017-05-22 11:48 · Score: 1

Well, now you understand WHY some designers prefer to work in complete isolation from these "design trends" that, as you describe, are "obsessed with style over substance, appearance over action and motivations over meaning..." but I suspect that Computer Programmers do not escape from their own kind of "programming trends"

I thought this was interesting by 91degrees · 2017-05-22 09:14 · Score: 1

Normally I wouldn't post such a vague sentiment, but with everyone trashing it, I feel I should add a positive post. Granted, the whole "life and death" is overblown, and the decline of Blacktype is probably a little more complicated than that. I certainly saw it a lot when I visited Cologne; and it wasn't popular outside Germanic countries before the Second World War, or even the first.

Still, the stuff about the different styles of the Clinton and Trump campaigns was interesting. Blacktype does give an imperialistic Germanic feel, which makes it great for being scary, imperialistic, or German. And while designers put a lot of effort into kerning tables, fonts don't support joining between arabic letters. Perhaps they should.

Anglophone privilege by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 09:37 · Score: 1

Anglophone privilege? Seriously? Fuck off

Arabic Text by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 09:38 · Score: 0

Oh woe and alas, Arabic isn't particularly well suited to being written with a keyboard..... If only there was some sort of font format that supported dynamically switching out graphemes and inserting ligatures in response to certain combinations of letters, if only it was called opentype and had been widely supported for years.

I see no mention of Chinese, Japanese etc, who I guess aren't en vogue as victims of vicious western imperialist keyboards, and seem to have coped just fine when it comes to inventive ways to accommodate languages with several thousand glyphs a piece.

An author with a serious interest in typography would of course have known this, but that would have spoiled one of their 2 examples, reducing their argument to "blackletter is literally Hitler"

At least use correct terminology by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 09:51 · Score: 0

Disappointing to see an article on fonts talk about bad keMing instead of bad keRNing (see the link to XKCD). It might actually have been funny if they'd spelt it correctly and used a font that exhibited the issue.

Re:At least use correct terminology by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 10:14 · Score: 0

How much do you know about Asperger's syndrome?
Re:At least use correct terminology by Khopesh · 2017-05-22 11:21 · Score: 1

I find it hilarious that they misread kerning as keming ... likely due to bad kerning.

--
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Re:At least use correct terminology by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 11:24 · Score: 0

How much do you know about Asperger's syndrome?
Enough to know it's not called that anymore?
Re:At least use correct terminology by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-23 06:51 · Score: 0

Full blown autism, at least you're aware of it, even if you aren't aware what a tedious human being you are.
Re:At least use correct terminology by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-23 06:57 · Score: 0

Woosh.

Does not matter by Drunkulus · 2017-05-22 09:59 · Score: 2

Honestly, in a time when UI "designers" insist that text be just a shade or two grayer than a light gray background, you're lucky to make it out at all.

Re:Does not matter by Megane · 2017-05-22 11:19 · Score: 1

This is what I call the "85-85" problem. For some reason, in the early 2Ks or so, it became a meme for blogs to display body text as 85% size 85% gray, and often on a non-white background. When I pick the text size in my web browser, that's because that's the size I want to read it at, not 85% of it. Contrast also matters for readability, and I don't want to read gray-on-gray text.
Even worse is when someone wants to be edgy with inverse text. I want my background lighter than the text because when reading on my laptop in the dark, I can just turn down the backlight. Inverse video subverts this, since most of the backlight is blocked, but only for the web page's text, and I can't read it without the backlight high enough that the rest of the white-on-black screen blinds me. I have a very nice black-on-gray custom CSS for hackaday, which is the worst offender of sites I regularly read. Sometimes I'll turn off the CSS style and read a page with oldskool Web 1.0 formatting.

--
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }

MISRA Rule 2-13-4 by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 10:20 · Score: 0

Use a proper coding standard:
"Rule 2-13-4 (Required) Literal suffixes shall be upper case." (C) MISRA C++: 2008

I block all fonts by mi · 2017-05-22 10:21 · Score: 1

Using AdBlock I (try to) block all the fonts (*.woff) — except "awesome" and similar "fonts", which are, in fact, icons... The browser falls back to some local substitute or another, which is just fine with me — and makes the world a slightly better place by reducing the network traffic and memory usage on my desktop.

Maybe, more people should do the same — thus hinting to the webmasters to concentrate on content more than the presentation...

--
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.

Re:I block all fonts by Megane · 2017-05-22 11:23 · Score: 1

I have "Allow documents to use other fonts" unchecked and read everything using Lucida Gothic. One big reason for this is I hate reading small point size serif fonts on the screen. This subverts the few web sites like Gawker that use custom fonts for UI icons, but fuck them. Everybody else gets along just fine without using custom icon fonts.

--
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }

Brick Heck, Copperplate Gothic! by mpercy · 2017-05-22 10:45 · Score: 1

http://www.hometown-pages.com/...

Brick Heck, the youngest child on ABC’s “The Middle,” isn’t someone most kids would want to emulate. He’s socially inept, has several odd behavioral traits and makes the library his favorite destination.

Since I’m far removed from childhood — gaining a little wisdom along the way — and past the social anxiety of trying to fit in, I’m rooting for him. I realize he is just a fictional character, but popular culture does influence our society.

The appeal of Brick isn’t just because his favorite activity is reading, a necessary skill for our audience in the newspaper business. I also admire his infatuation with fonts.

Discussion on fonts has slipped into several episodes of the television series. In a very early show, he had a plan — that involved fonts, of all things — for winning over a girl. When, to everyone’s surprise, she showed up at his door, he chimed “Would you like to come in and I’ll show you my favorite fonts?”

Another time, he discovers that the rides at Disney World are “way more fun than I thought” because they have signs, and the words on them are in different fonts.

During the Super Bowl, he surprises his father by telling him a newspaper story on a star football running back is fascinating. The excitement of his son finally appreciating football turned to disappointment when Mike Heck discovered the fascination for Brick wasn’t with the content of the story, but the Copperplate Gothic font used in the story.

Flash Back from 1986... by pubwvj · 2017-05-22 10:47 · Score: 1

Is this article perhaps an accidental repost from 1986? Doomers have been writing this sort of nonsense article for decades.

Font Fascists by cunina · 2017-05-22 10:50 · Score: 1

"The next generation of fascists will not love geometric sans serifs as much as Mussolini did. They won’t be threatening journalists in blackletter."

No, they'll be telling us all what fonts to use lest we be considered racist.

Cannot afford it by VikingNation · 2017-05-22 10:53 · Score: 1

How much money does it cost to hire a consultant to review your message and select the best way to communicate (colors, size, font, etc.)?

Fraktur and Nazis by TeknoHog · 2017-05-22 10:59 · Score: 1

When I grew up, I associated Fraktur with old books, with no fuhr.. I mean further value connotations. For instance, my grandma has an ancient bible printed in Fraktur. It is only in the past few years that I have started seeing Fraktur in the Nazi light in the general media and entertainment. Likewise, terms such as "grammar nazi" are relatively recent. I have been called a "nazi" because I like to keep things in order. I'm not even going to start on the millennia-long history of the swastika. I guess fonts are one of the many tools people can use in their culture wars, but it's sad to see good things become unusable because of arbitrary associations.

--
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.

Re:Fraktur and Nazis by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 16:45 · Score: 0

Welcome to the internet! You are obviously new here if you haven't stumbled upon those old neonazi geocities sites composed entirely of images using Fraktur font. It's been in use since the mid 90's at least.

Oh horsefeathers..... by Radical+Moderate · 2017-05-22 11:02 · Score: 1

"As Hersh writes, 'Typography can silently influence: It can signify dangerous ideas, normalize dictatorships, and sever broken nations. In some cases it may be a matter of life and death. And it can do this as powerfully as the words it depicts.' Don't believe him? He's got ample visual examples to prove it."

His ample visual samples are blackletter, Arabic, and Cyrillic, and 2 of those aren't fonts, they're alphabets. And Hillary's logo vs. Donald's hat. I know people who spend hours agonizing over choosing just the right font. I still think they're idiots.

--
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.

Re: Oh horsefeathers..... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 13:14 · Score: 1

Blackletter isn't a font either. It's a typeface. A font is a collection of all the characters in a typeface.
Re: Oh horsefeathers..... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 20:08 · Score: 0

Found the font nazi.

Re:Fraktur is a terrible typeface but. . . by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 11:15 · Score: 0

A good looking mermaid!

Grub by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 12:27 · Score: 0

Years ago I wasted many dozens of hours trying to figure out why Grub (legacy) couldn't find the configuration file, which I had naively named "menu.1st" (as in the number 1 followed by st) rather than "menu.lst" (as in lower-case L followed by st). It made perfect sense to me since it was the first stage menu file loaded upon boot, so it never even occurred to me (nor was it at all clear from the vast majority of fonts) that I had been looking at lst the whole time instead. It also doesn't help that Google happily returns hits on the incorrect spelling without any warning or notice that it's effectively changed the search for you, and is highlighting the correct file names in the results.

That was a truly frustrating experience that made me very sensitive to such font problems.

Re: Grub by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 22:25 · Score: 0

You're not the only one, the same thing happened to me too.

Tahoma by hduff · 2017-05-22 13:29 · Score: 1

I always use Tahoma on my computers.

--
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert

#allFontsMatter by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 13:56 · Score: 0

#allFontsMatter

What's with the fontism against comic sans?

Handwriting? by mcswell · 2017-05-22 14:56 · Score: 4, Informative

Handwriting? What's that?

BTW, SIL (an international missionary organization that does Bible translation) has produced many free fonts (you may even have heard of the "SIL Font License", which some other free fonts use). Because Bible translation is usually done for pre-literate or newly literate cultures, the Andika font (https://www.sil-lead.org/blog/2013/8/18/andika). I don't know how it compares with Comic Sans in your list of desiderata, though.

For the record, SIL produces a wide variety of other fonts, including Cyrillic, Greek and fonts for other non-Roman scripts (http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php). They're Beta testing a Nasta'liq font--if you know anything about Nasta'liq, you probably know that it's one of the hardest styles in the world to typeset. SIL (through a former member, Jonathan Kew) is also the creator of XeTeX (now maintained by others).

Re:Handwriting? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 23:01 · Score: 0

I believe you colonists call it "cursive".

Bait cancer by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 16:46 · Score: 0

I regret giving this shit article my click. It's reading too much into nothing and giving people plenty of room for trolls to bait suckers into overreacting to nothing.

Re:Bait cancer by aicrules · 2017-05-23 02:14 · Score: 1

I kept looking for the ample examples of where font could be a matter of life and death. Found none. Annoyed, but adblocking on so asshat got nothing from me.

Blackletter in Gang Tats by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 17:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

You see a lot of Blackletter neo-Gothic ... in Gang Tattoos. Most people associate the Blackletter fonts (though they don't know the name) with Latino Gangs like MS-13, Mexican Mafia, and the like from the pictures of tattooed criminal defendants in the media or the various gang members it is simply impossible not to meet in daily life in Southern California with heavy, heavy Blackletter tats.

Indeed Blackletter tats like the ones pictured here:'

http://latinoprisongangs.blogspot.com/2010/04/mexicanhispanic-gang-tattoos.html

Are found with non-gang meanings often among Working Class Latinos. Most of whom have barely heard of Hitler and certainly are neither neo-Nazis or remotely White (instead being very Indio/Mestizo).

So the article is full of garbage. There is a growing interest in abandoned, and revived, "heritage" fonts from Poland, England, France, etc. as people get tired of Diversidystopia Globalism and want to celebrate their distinctiveness and rebel against international corporate sameness. Hillary's soul-less corporate logo was arguably worse and more muddled than Trump's short and direct message. Hillary's design had all the passion of a corporate mission statement and all the romance and intrigue of HR Mandatory Diversity Workshop.

Most fonts today coming from the corporate sphere are fairly totalitarian, it was no accident that the Village in "the Prisoner" used a derivative of Albertus to show the soft face of a Western tyranny as oppressive as the Eastern one. The endless droning of the Corporate Managerial class and their constant virtue signaling is tiresome.

Local Arab leaders like Nasser modernized Arabic fonts for printing half a century ago -- and Muslims rebelled. Ataturk modernized the Turkish fonts for Western printing and reading nearly a century ago -- and Muslim Turks rebelled. Heck Muslim mobs in Cairo, Alexandria, and Istanbul were smashing up printing presses and burning books and newspapers in the 1830s. Muslim just HATE literacy, freedom of expression, pretty much anything that is rooted in modernity and would rather live in filth and retain their Sixth Century tribal values than give some of it up to live prosperity. The Japanese and Chinese writing system is far more complex and demanding than Arabic and they managed just fine with first print and then computers. More managerial class virtue signaling -- Muslims are backward and violent because they embrace a total way of life they like -- they want to live like a character in Game of Thrones and are unhappy when people try to move them into an Episode of Friends. Fonts have nothing to do with it save Virtue Signaling.

Lock her up by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 18:26 · Score: 0

This is the type of crap article we get when the MSM goes into lockdown waiting for the party line from the DNC. Now that it looks like there are ties from the DNC to the Seth Rich murder, and that the info to wipe out the CIA agents in China may have come from Hillary's security breach, we don't have to see the clickbait political articles here on slashdot. But don't get used to it. Podesta will be issuing a statement any time now since Comey won't be able to give him immunity.

Make your mind up. by bickerdyke · 2017-05-22 19:47 · Score: 1

Why don’t we use blackletter anymore? The answer is literally “Hitler.” Nazi leadership used the Fraktur, an archetypal variety of blackletter, as their official typeface.

or

The Nazis played a part in this. In 1941, the regime re-characterized Fraktur as Judenletter, “Jewish letters,” and systematically banned it from use.

So the Nazis banned their official typeface? No wonder they lost the war....

If you haven't read the TFA: These two statements aren't even a paragraph apart!

--
bickerdyke

Jumped the shark? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-22 23:22 · Score: 0

Has society jumped the shark here?

Re:Jumped the shark? by aicrules · 2017-05-23 02:16 · Score: 1

No, just this hack named Ben Hersh.

Ban words by Anonymous Coward · 2017-05-23 02:23 · Score: 0

If you ban words, surely the ideas associated with it will disappear right?
Good thing there's a push for emojis, I can't wait for hieroglyphs 2.0, the last one was so outdated and unmaintained.

Comic Sans is just fine. by fyngyrz · 2017-05-23 02:24 · Score: 2

Comic Sans is wonderful. Three reasons.

First, as to its general appearance, it's fun and playful, and (duh) highly reminiscent of comics, which can truly be an art form. This would be enough, but also:

Second, the letters are highly distinct from one another, so it's quick to comprehend. That actually makes it a good idea to use.

Third, it annoys the heck out of fashionistas, and that just makes me smile. Nothing makes the self-important highlight their phony-balony more than a completely unimportant issue where they've stupidly jumped on the bandwagon and now don't know how to get off.

To try and justify their position, they make up utter nonsense like "Typography can silently influence: It can signify dangerous ideas, normalize dictatorships, and sever broken nations. In some cases it may be a matter of life and death." That's not an analysis; that's pompous, hyperventilating argle-blargle.

The danger is in the ideas expressed. The ideas are carried by recognition: Not which recognizable symbols, just the recognition of an association between the symbol and the idea. It doesn't matter if the symbol is a swastika, Ye Olde Englife Font, or a happy puppy. If the idea is "let's gas anyone we don't like", there is your problem. Not the stupid font.

The "blame the font" stupidity is the same kind of thinking that says "guns are the problem." No, guns aren't the problem. The problem is that society is sick, specifically because education has failed to socialize the population well enough, and if you take away guns (or fonts, etc.) you will not have solved the problem, you're just moving the goalposts. In a circle.

To solve a problem you have to address it at its source. Fonts (guns, drugs, sex, etc.) are not the source. That should be obvious if you just rub a couple of wet brain cells together for a second or two. If you attack the symptoms, you're just engaging in a round of whack-a-mole. The moles are still there. Your satisfaction that your latest particular mole is down is not in any way indicative that a solution has been found. You want to solve the mole problem, you need to blow up the machine that's popping them up.

To belabor the point even further, if all text was written in a nice, safe font with round edges and well-behaved descenders, these ideas would still exist, still flourish, and would still be communicated just as well. Ergo: fonts are not where a smart person would look for problems. Because they aren't the problem.

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I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.

Irony by Richard+Brandshaft · 2017-05-23 03:43 · Score: 1

The article followed current fashion: Grey-on-white type. Easier-to-read black-on-white is soooo boring.

My choice of font by cellocgw · 2017-05-23 04:07 · Score: 1

Follows this line.

Can't see it so easily? That's because I'm using WhiteSpace Font. Heck,if it's good enough for programmers...

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https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw

Again? by whitroth · 2017-05-23 04:27 · Score: 1

Late eighties was the last time there was an explosion of fonts. I have a friend who, I understand, back then bragged he had 700 fonts.

Now let's consider: overwhelmingly, they fit into one of two categories: first, try to notice the differences between, say, Times New Roman and whatever, or Courier/Ariel and whatever.

And the other category, which is "no wonder it was used in one book, and no one ever wanted to struggle with reading that font again".

The Balkans by zb84 · 2017-05-24 01:56 · Score: 1

Saying that Croatian and Serbian are similar is like saying Australian and British are similar.

Suddenly? by michael_wojcik · 2017-05-29 01:39 · Score: 1

In what way is this sudden? People have been fighting over the rhetorical effect of fonts in soft-copy documents pretty much as long as we've had raster displays, and the serious academic study of the visual-rhetorical effects of typography in digital texts goes back at least to the early '90s. (The earliest essay on the subject in Handa's Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World collection is from '93, for example.)

Fucking kids. This thing that you think is new is not new.

Medium by allo · 2017-06-03 22:58 · Score: 1

Medium should start with removing header images which are larger than the text. This is absolutely the worst thing.

Slashdot Mirror

How Fonts Are Fueling the Culture Wars (backchannel.com)

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