rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) (03/30/91)
A while back I asked folks in these groups why, in their personal opinions, Courier is so ugly. I was interested in seeing whether folks who, for the most part, are interested in type but are not experts or designers, were (a) able to define specific reasons they didn't like the type, and (b) in general agreement on those reasons. (Sometimes you look at something and agree "that's ugly" without being able to say why. That was not the case here.) At the outset, I should mention (as several people pointed out) that there are various incarnations of Courier. I believe there are even different Couriers which have been supplied by Adobe with PostScript printers at various times. The Adobe Courier, regular weight, is one of the lighter variations. There were a few potshots at other font families (Computer Modern, Letter Gothic). Someone suggested using a Lucida monospace. This sounds interesting, but I haven't seen it--where can it be had? Anyway...the most commonly-mentioned problems were: - Stroke weight too light. - Big, ungainly serifs--i, j, l among the worst. (It was suggested that the large serifs are a failed attempt to improve the color of the font as well as compensate for the fixed pitch.) - No contrast--that is, no variation in stroke weight through the letters, including the serifs. After that, there were some notes about the "geometric" style--too many straight lines and simple curves (circular arcs). The proportion of the characters was described as "clumsy" or "squat". There were various pleas for a "decent fixed-pitch font." -- Dick Dunn rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd Boulder, CO (303)449-2870 The Official Colorado State Vegetable is now the "state legislator".
tut@cairo.Eng.Sun.COM (Bill "Bill" Tuthill) (03/30/91)
rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes: > > [a good summary of Courier design problems] > > There were various pleas for a "decent fixed-pitch font." What??? There are already plenty of decent fixed-width fonts, it's just that LazyWriters don't have them by default. You have to give Adobe credit for vastly improving the looks of desktop publishing (remember Computer Modern?), but that credit is somewhat diminshed by their foisting Courier upon the world. Prestige is an excellent fixed-width font; it's almost as nice in the Imagen implementation as on a Selectric typewriter. Text in Prestige elite can be easier to read than text in certain variable-pitch fonts (I won't name names). I like the IBM PC screen font, which more responsible for the success of the PC than people give it credit for being. The "serif" fonts on Sun workstations are nice, as are the Motif (?) fonts on DECstations. I've never seen any printer versions of these fonts, though.