Typophile

Caslon's w

loocas

Hi all.

My project is a for-screen pdf of text for a dark fantasy game. I've been going for a classic style, so I went with Adobe Caslon Pro for the text. It looks beautiful, especially underneath the FF Pitu headers, which really match the feel of the game. What I'm bothered by is Caslon's lowercase w, whose center bar is slightly lower than the arms'. When the pdf is viewed at less than 100% zoom (as most people probably will) the w looks curved and really blotchy, so much so that I'm considering changing.

http://typedia.com/explore/typeface/adobe-caslon

Is this happening because Caslon Pro might have been designed/adapted for print more than screen? Are there other versions of Caslon that might spare me from this? Or should I not worry because this can happen to any font, assuming that zooming out on a pdf doesn't change the font's size but just shrinks the display?

I'll try Minion Pro next, but I'd love suggestions.

Frode Bo Helland

This is probably a case of lacking hinting. Apart from the web safe fonts, you might wanna look for stuff specifically made/adapted for screen, like for example Minion Web.

loocas

Hinting is new to me, so I'll do some reading up. Thanks for the help!

Lucas

Mark Simonson

It's not the hinting--that's really how it is drawn. It's based closely on Caslon's original design, I seem to recall. Almost all other Caslon revivals "correct" this feature. There are lots to choose from.

Frode Bo Helland

Ow, it's just a tiny difference. I didn't spot it in the link you provided. Thanks Mark.

Captured from web.archive.org on 1 Feb 2010. view this capture