Re: New LilyPond website

[Shane Brandes]

I gave John yesterday the opportunity to defend his choice of sans
serif font in a private email. Now that that box has been opened
publicly I will comment. Sans versus Serif is an annoying discussion
both styles have their place. Sans has been around 200 years and serif
fonts since 1465. The argument about screen resolution versus paper,
is rapidly becoming irrelevant with advances in screen technology.
Therefore there only remains the argument of legibility. Either can of
course be extremely legible, but in terms of reading speed in longer
bits of text I really believe the argument that the serifs do allow
the eye to flow between letters better and ultimately give the mind a
much more precise evaluation of what the letter form in question is.
As a subvocalization reader it becomes annoyingly obvious to me when I
am reading sans fonts as it forces me back down to much slower speeds
where I often find myself reading aloud in my head. Although I expect
people that grew up during the depression drinking ersatz coffee might
not enjoy the complexities of the real thing. It might be the fixation
with sans fonts are also the remnants of fadish rebellion to the
establishment left over from the post WWII era. Anyway, given the fact
that Lilypond is trying to give the user the best possible music
printing, it is my belief that the choice of typography should reflect
that as a well and not give off the scent of our current throwaway
society. Yep much stronger opinions on that than I initially thought.
So feel free to disagree.

regards,
Shane Brandes


On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 8:29 AM, Andrew Bernard
<address@hidden> wrote:
> Not at all - I am merely pointing out that a very significant website with a
> very large international readership uses a serif font for headings and text,
> as a counter example. I myself made no argument for either type of face one
> way or the other.
>
>
> Andrew
>
>
> On 1 December 2016 at 00:20, David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> > Are you going to dictate to The New York Times, for example, that they
>> > convert their serif to sans?
>>
>> You appear to be a person of very fixed opinions...
>>
>
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