do the principles for each legibility and proportional / geometric compositional aesthetics go hand in hand? or do these two somehow cancel / fight off each other out when it comes to optimisation / maximisation / refinement of each department?
have a nice day
hun
no, and don't you find it a little tiresome when a good design choice is dismissed as "aesthetic." by folks who think that what they do in life has more serious & practical applications that what you do.
There is no "VS' between aesthetics and legibility, Unless by "aesthetics," you mean something that is clearly meant to be decorative That is a different matter. IF a font is meant to be decorative, then legibility isn't is main purpose in life.
You can't think of the aspects that go into making a font legible without aesthetics, but while aesthetic choices may be beautiful they also have to be appropriate to the job at hand.
Aesthetics have a real function — You could call it ergonomics, or something along those lines. You can't have a legible / readable font that is also ugly, because "ugly" is distracting, and a legible font shouldn't be intruding into the consciousness of the reader in the act of reading.
Captured from web.archive.org on 21 Oct 2013. view this capture