Fonts

[Tao]

A good friend led me to this site which can be rather addicting, even if you're not a fontophile. (Which I, by the way, am not. I'm only just recently learning to disdain Papyrus.)

It is a good challenge for attention to detail and well set up, in my opinion.

[C is for]

Ay yi. I got 25 correct without missing any then mixed up Verdana and Helvetica. Got distracted, I guess.

But it's pretty easy up to where I got (level 5). You just have to know which is serif and which is san serif. And...maybe you have to have written a lot of stories where the story informed the font type, so you browsed fonts a lot.

[thebigcheese]

I've dabbled in graphic design, so this is pretty interesting for me. If you know your serif/sans serif, you can make it to about level 6 with no problem. But after that, they start asking you about similar sans serif fonts and it gets really tricky. Helvetica, Gill, and Verdana are giving me fits right now (how do you tell the difference between boring letters like N, I, and H?). So far, I've made it to level 8 with a longest streak of 21.

[Emiliana]

Heh ... This is probably more because I'm bored than because I have any actual skill, but I made it to level ten -- it wouldn't let me advance farther than that without logging in, which I don't care to do. But I agree, TBC, the sans-serif fonts were killing me. I dabbled in journalism in high school and once had an editor who despised Helvetica with a passion. I think I inherited her aversion to it, and by extension to most sans-serif fonts.

[thebigcheese]

Journalists would say that... Sans-serif certainly has a place in the design world.

[Emiliana]

Oh, undoubtedly. It can give a nice clean look to designs, but I don't like reading large amounts of it in print. And Helvetica ... well, it's just an ugly font.

[thebigcheese]

I don't like reading large amounts of it in print.

Heh, maybe we can resurrect that argument about how the Board should go back to using serif fonts. I'm still on that bandwagon.

[Whistler]

I don't like reading large amounts of it in print.

Heh, maybe we can resurrect that argument about how the Board should go back to using serif fonts. I'm still on that bandwagon.

agreed. If not for the questions themselves, I'd like it in the answers. Although LJ recently pointed out that there is no difference in reading speed between sans and serif fonts.

[thebigcheese]

But we can still have our preferences, right?

[Tao]

No. All preferences are moot when it comes to the Board.

Dang, I could see where the 100 hour borg could have been fun... :Þ

[Emiliana]

Here's a tangentially related article from the BBC about the relationship between fonts and learning:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11573666

The article says that slightly harder-to-read fonts increase the amount of attention you pay to what you're reading -- leading to greater recall!

[Gimgimno]

I got up to 500 points on level 10 before I realized it wouldn't let me go any further.

Gill Sans was the only font that gave me much trouble; the others all have somewhat distinct characteristics that distinguish them from the others. For example, Verdana generally has a higher center than Helvetica does, even though the two fonts are fairly similar in style.

Also, as a side note, I have always hated Garamond's capital 'W.'