Re: [GMG-Devel] [Social-mediagoblin] MediaGoblin: the Logo

[Jef van Schendel]

2011/7/28 Thorsten Wilms <address@hidden>:
> It would be good to select a font for continuous text, harmonious with the
> custom type, which could be tweaked to improve the match, while keeping it
> unique.
>
> The font should have bold and italic styles. Have a look at
> http://www.google.com/webfonts#ReviewPlace:refine/Collection:Istok+Web|Lato|Open+Sans|Cabin|Arimo

Ok so I've played around with this collection for a while, here are
some thoughts.

For a quick and dirty reference, here are five screenshots of a
regular MediaGoblin media page with these 5 typefaces applied:

http://schendje.fedorapeople.org/goblin/typeface/Screenshot-Arimo.png
http://schendje.fedorapeople.org/goblin/typeface/Screenshot-Cabin.png
http://schendje.fedorapeople.org/goblin/typeface/Screenshot-Istok.png
http://schendje.fedorapeople.org/goblin/typeface/Screenshot-OpenSans.png
http://schendje.fedorapeople.org/goblin/typeface/Screenshot_Lato.png

So for me one of the main things is that it should be something that
not only looks good, but is recognizable and friendly while at the
same time fitting with many different content types.

- I don't think Arimo and Istok look as good as the others. Arimo has
something similar to Arial which I've never liked, but I can't quite
put my finger on what that thing is. It makes sense that it resembles
Arial though, because according to its description it's "metrically
compatible". With both Istok and Arimo it's not so much "oh, these
look awful" but more "I don't think these look as good as the rest".
They both seem a bit bland to me.

- Cabin seems very fun. It looks cheery and a bit playful, but I think
this is a problem, too. What if we have content that isn't happy and
sunny at all? I like it, but I think that it would fit less well with
certain types of content.

- Lato. Now this one I really, really like. It has several unique
things that set it apart from the different platforms' default
sans-serifs. It doesn't seem like your old standard font, it's more
refreshing than that. But it also isn't too distracting. I guess that
was also the aim, as we can read in the description[1]. I've been
using this for the last couple of weeks and I'm really fond of it.
However I'm still not sure if it will be suitable for many types of
content. It *might* be, but I'd really like the opinion of others on
this one... For instance, have a look at this screenshot[2. It's a
silly example, but what do you think? Does that clash too much? Is it
jarring or do you think it can work?

Anyhow, these are some short thoughts. I'm very much an amateur when
it comes to typography, so maybe what I said is all nonsense.

Jef


[1] http://www.google.com/webfonts/specimen/Lato
[2] http://schendje.fedorapeople.org/goblin/typeface/Screenshot-Lato-serious.png