Typophile

How necessary is it?

sasabonsam

Hey everyone,
Been working hard on a few families as of late and before I was ready to generate and start testing I hit a "snag". It wasn't a snag really, just a question about hinting. Is it really important with the advances in screen technologies nowadays?

I've looked around online and even read a few manuals and all signs point to yes however most of these articles that give you tutorial advice on hinting haven't been updated since 1998. And I'm sure advances in screen resolution and type rendering have moved on since then.

So the question still remains... How important is hinting to typeface design and production now?

blank

Hinting is extremely important if you’re selling your fonts to people who will be using them to set running text on obsolete platforms like Microsoft operating systems that still use hinting to make text legible. Otherwise just learn to set up your blue zones and stem values and let the Adobe autohinter do the rest.

Steven Acres

I have a feeling that higher PPI screens will make hinting obsolete within a few years.

Jackson

Not a chance

Steven Acres

Well, screens coming out last year were up to 250 ppi. With the rate of technological advancements, we'll see that go up pretty quickly.

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