I suppose there are only three you can use anyway, because you have to go by what is on the user's system. My choice: Verdana before Helvetica/Arial.

Next Problem: If you really want to control the output use pixels, they come almost same size on most of the systems.
(There's is an ever ongoing discussion wether to us "em" as a measure.You might consider this, too, since it's relative and you leave choice of type-size at the user's side.)

The Body Copy of this forum is arround 12 I suppose. (It's done by font-tags, so the measure is the HTML classes for text size: 1, 2, 3,...)
Here's what's in the font tag:
"size=1 face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif"

Your last question should also be answered with this.

Servus

Dominik

Kevin,
you're talking about imaged text, I presume? Because otherwise Dominik is right.
If it's imaged: What point/pixel/PPEM size are you using? It makes a big difference.

hhp

thanks guys for your help,
i was talking about normal body copy text and fonts.
Its just that some really clean sites have a nice, well line spaced, good leading bodies of text and it looks really clear, clean and modern to read, not to mention easy to read as well.

And i have always been fighting with myself as to which font/s are the best to use, as you want your site to be easy to read and at the same time i want it to look modern and corporate etc.

I seem to always use Arial, can i ask is there any reason you prefer Verdana over arial? Is it because it has better leading, character spacing is larger?
I would appreciate your answers, and Thanks for your feedback answers, they were spot on.
cheers kev

Matthew Carter talked about Verdana's development at the last TYPO Berlin. He said that there are only so many ways to draw an bitmapped letter at only a few pixels high

Verdana is far more readable on screen, both in terms of letter shapes and spacing. Arial was a print font that was adapted for screen use. Verdana was designed for screen use from the ground up.

With regards to letter shapes, Arial's relatively closed counters for shapes like a, c, and e make those letters less distinctive than they could be at typical on-screen text sizes.

Try typing a sentence. Set it in 9 pt Arial and again right below in 9 pt Verdana. Copy those two lines, and do them in 10, 11 and 12 pt. View them on-screen at regular 100% zoom. Which text looks more readable to you across the range of sizes.

Note: If you have a Mac, also use 14 and 16 pt. If you have Windows, also use 7 and 8 pt. This will help compensate for the different ppem ratios of the two OSes in normal applications.

Cheers,

T

excellent feedback T and Dan
Thank you both very much i will do that T
cheers kev

> One day, Microsoft engineers were looking
> at a comparison of on-screen Verdana versus
> on-screen Arial.

I think it was being compared to Tahoma, not Arial.

Verdana is more readable for the reasons cited, but it's also pretty wide, which can be a problem onscreen.

--

BTW, what do I tell you guys about voting? :-/
Voting = venting. Resist the self-important urge!

hhp

Hrant, are you talking about rating other people's posts on Tphile, or about going to the polls on Nov. 2?

If it's the latter, then I disagree with you. There's no way you can convince me that the next 4 years won't be better (for the U.S. and the world) with someone other than GWB in the White House. So I intend to vote on Tuesday, and I encourage everyone else, regardless of party affiliation, to do the same.

(I'm not unsympathetic to your arguments about the merits/workings/fairness of of our electoral system -- but in this case, the specter of 4 more years of Bush is too frightening.)

I think this one star suits quite good. Could be a little more in golden section, but ...

>There's no way you can convince me that the next 4 years won't be better (for the U.S. and the world) with someone other than GWB in the White House. So I intend to vote on Tuesday, and I encourage everyone else, regardless of party affiliation, to do the same.

This is interesting Marc, because it is a contradictory statement. You say that Bush must be voted out of the White House, and that everyone should vote, regardless of affiliation (i.e., who they would vote for). We are a 50/50 country

> look where it has got them.

Totally, I mean like when's the last time they bombed people?

hhp

Contradictory, Dan? I don't think so. Unlike Mr. Bush's party, I want my candidate to win because more people support him, rather than by suppressing the votes of the other side. I'd like to see record voter turnout *and* a Kerry victory.

Well, I agree with half of your statement; I'd like to see a record turn-out, too. But neither possible outcome will satisfy me in the presidential election this time.

Yes Joe,
i agree i have just been trying different combinations and i funny enough arrived at almost the same 2 combos.

For body copy i used Verdana at 11 point looks nice and clean with a bit of line spacing.
I even took the colouring back to 70% black and it opened the page up very nicley and was still nice to and easy to read.

Small Headlines and Captions I actually do prefer Arial at around 12 point bold.

I find thats a nice clean combination.
Although i wouldnt use the same 2 together in my graphic design for printed materials for example.

To you all, thank you very much for the time you have invested in giving the feedback you did, its beens a big help especially now that i have a final workable solution.
Thanks and Cheers
Kev

PS: 1 last question, as you mentioned Verdana can get a bit wide sometimes, can we apply tracking to the body copy with HTML or CSS sheets and close the letter spacing up a bit to combat this problem for the web??

Cheers Kev

Negative-tracking a pixelfont is dangerous, although in rare cases useful.
However, positive-tracking pixelfonts can often be useful, since so many of them use 1 pixel letterspacing when they should be using 2.

Hmmm, I wonder if InDesign can be made to optical-space in 125 unit increments only...

hhp

< avoiding the bush-kerry debate... >

Ummm

I' don't know how many of you have experience with CSS, but we try to avoid the "point/pixel-problem"( as Thomas described) by defining the font-size & lineheight in Ems.

like:

.bodycopy {
font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;
font-size: 1em;
line-height: 0.2em;
}


that way, the font-size depends on the configuration of the user. If I'm not mistaken, an Em in Web-typography is the size predefined in the control panel of the browser or the size defined in the parent object. For better info see: More fun with font-sizes by Eric Meyer

Anyway, to answer your question: yes you can define (negative) letter-spacing (css-property: letter-spacing) with CSS, but alas, is a little bit flaky. Especially in IE. It's a bit of trial & error really...

letter</font>

>>I'm for the electoral college...There aren't any real democracies in the world

Dan,

Dumping the electoral college would be the first step towards making a real democracy out of the US.
In the UK, history and geography are held up as reasons why we don't have a democratic electoral system, but in the US, there doesn't seem to be any reason for it.
(Of course, a democratic electoral system is only a small step towards a democracy, and a democracy is only a small step towards a fair society, but they are necessary steps nonetheless).

A republic, run on democratic principles, doesn't necessarially preclude that its citizens won't live in in freedom. Like most American schoolchildren, I grew up thinking that America was the only "free country" in the whole world. Now, living in Europe, I realize how not true that is. Granted, the United States is older than every European democracy, except maybe Holland's, but the continent is now filled with free, "democratic" societies, which are all Republics too.

Hurray for Republics!

Of course, in many ways, the United States is more of a "democratic" republic than most European examples. At least in the United States, we have a much more direct method of electing our chief executive. Compare Tuesday's election with how the UK and Germany (and even Canada) choose their Prime Ministers.

>>the United States is older than every European democracy

Not sure about that.
(I assume you meant 'democracy in the United States is older than democracy in any European nation' I think you would struggle to convince many historians of that one. Maybe I misunderstood).

>>Hurray for Republics
As opposed to what?

>>...a much more direct method of electing our chief executive. Compare Tuesday's election with how the UK and Germany (and even Canada) choose their Prime Ministers.

But a different thing happens in the UK, Germany, and other places. Here we don't elect the executive. We elect a local representative, those representatives constitute the (main body of the) legislature, and the executive is drawn from the members of the legislative body.
Its this process, the need for local representatives and the presence of a significant third party that allows anti-democrats to hide behind this system and deny us a democratic electoral system (though one is available).
I can't imagine what reasons a sane person could find for the US not just having the candidate with the most votes, winning the election.
In whatway does the electoral college promote democracy?

>Not sure about that.
(I assume you meant 'democracy in the United States is older than democracy in any European nation' I think you would struggle to convince many historians of that one. Maybe I misunderstood).

Well, our republic was founded when the US Constitution was ratified in 1789. England, although its Parliamentary tradition dates back to the 1600s, or even the 1200s, did not even have universal white protestant male sufferage until at least 1848. The German republic was founded in 1949, and the current French republic in 1958. etc

Totally, I mean like when's the last time [the Swiss bombed people?

A few years ago they invaded and almost totally overran Lichtenstein, but that turned out to be an accident. A contingent of Swiss soldiers was on an exercise in the east of the country and received orders to move to a particular latitude and longitude: someone must have typed one of the numbers wrong, though, because they ended up in the middle of some town in Lichtenstein.

There seems to be some misinformation in this thread. Online, typography can't be set at any size. That's the nice thing about online type...the end-user gets to control it. Without going into all of the arguments for/against certain type sizing online, I'll just say this:

- points are for print...not screen measurements
- pixels do not mean it will render the same in all browsers or will be non-resizable in any browser
- ideally, if everyone knew how to adjust their browser settings, you'd set body type at 100% (and this is the point of debate).

As for the electoral collage, it is an outdated method that serves no purpose in today's world. It made sense in the 1800s--not in the 2000s.

>>...our republic was founded when the US Constitution was ratified in 1789. England...did not even have universal white protestant male sufferage until at least 1848...

But just as England had a parliamentary system many years before it even came close to being a democracy, the US was still way off being a democracy for many years after the constitution was ratified in 1789. In 1789 only rich, white adult males got the vote. Women had to wait until 1920. African Americans had to wait until 1870, American citizens of Chinese ancestry had to wait until 1943 - even Native Americans had to wait until 1924. And in practice, for most non-white Americans, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 marked the advent of a near-democratic electoral system.

>>Well, in the US, we get to vote for both our local representatives in Congress AND for President (even if we elect him indirectly).

This happens in the UK too, but both things are combined into one election process.


>In whatway does the electoral college promote democracy?
>I never said it did.

OK, sorry. I misunderstood - when you said 'I'm for the electoral college' I couldn't think why anyone would be for the electoral college, and assumed there must be some argument that it promotes democracy. If it doesn't promote democracy what does it do?

==================================
==================================

One thing that I keep hearing here at the moment is 'Why does the US make elections so complicated?' Not so much in terms of the electoral college, but more in terms of the voting arrangements, voting machines etc. No US state has a population more than half the size of Britain, yet here with turnout usually well over 70%, many areas having more than the usual 5 or 6 candidates, and a voting system that uses nothing more than paper and pencils, we get a fairly accurate count, returned by about 7am the morning after the election.

> Why does?
> Why this?
> Why that?

Dude, are these rhetorical questions?
Because when you look at the core foundations of the US, all the answers (like why an Electoral College exists today) are pretty obvious. Wake up from the formalistic discourse - all it does is prolong the downward spiral we're in.

hhp

I prefer Verdana for a good sans face and Georgia for a serif face. I use Georgia on my site because it fits the look of the site better.

I hope Kevin wasn't scared away from Typophile being that his first thread was hijacked and turned political. Yes, he got his answer, but I doubt he was expecting this.

>>Dude, are these rhetorical questions?

No


>>Because when you look at the core foundations of the US, all the answers (like why an Electoral College exists today) are pretty obvious

Not to me.
There are two categories of answers, BTW, excuses and reasons - I can't think of anything that would fit into either category. (Except, maybe, that it makes campaigning cheaper, but that's hardly a compelling reason for undermining legitimacy)


>>Wake up from the formalistic discourse - all it does is prolong the downward spiral we're in.

Hrant, I disagree. I think you probably know that I'm as unconvinced by global capitalism as you are, but for me, there is a point in discovering exactly what's wrong with it. The reason for that is so that we move on in the right direction, which as everyone else knows, is exactly the opposite direction from monarchism.

With apologies for contributing to the hi-jacking of this thread (and kudos to David Maloney for pointing us in the more appropriate direction)...

discovering exactly what's wrong with it.

...I

Huh, sounds just like the Communist Manifesto! :-/
Human nature precludes the true success of both Communism and Capitalism.

hhp

...Huh, sounds just like the Communist Manifesto! :-/

if this comment pertains to my suggestion...

I guess to someone who won

I don't need to read what you're reading to simply comment that you sound too eager to believe your system can work.

I don't think the bible, torah or qur'aan contain much usable insight, much less an apologetic feel-good coping effort written for the bourgeoisie by some shmoe.

hhp

And if you want a book recommendation, here's one:
"Against the masses: varieties of anti-democratic thought since the French Revolution", by J V Femia. Although you'll still have to put the spineless apologetics of the author in context.

hhp

OK, I should also apologise for the hijacking of this thread. But, while we're here...

>>The Mystery of Capitalism by Hernando de Soto

de Soto comes across as a little too much like that Fukuyama idiot that captured a lot of media attention a few years back. I have to admit that I didn't read his book properly, but I read enough to know that some of the things he claims to have 'discovered in the history books' had been discovered about a hundred and fifty years before, and are, or have been, the subject of intense academic debate.

Unlikely, since I've been trouncing you since before William showed up.

But anyway, I get pissed when attacked with the assumption that somebody has to be the literary superset of somebody else to think they're wrong. It's not what you read, it's what you think.

BTW, don't forget to Rock the Revote!
http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4043

hhp

Trounced by someone who thinks de Soto sounds like the Communist Manifesto?

Not trounced; just bored with the same old

>Contradictory, Dan? I don't think so. Unlike Mr. Bush's party, I want my candidate to win because more people support him, rather than by suppressing the votes of the other side. I'd like to see record voter turnout *and* a Kerry victory.

Well, Marc, thankfully the did United States have record turnout

Dan,

There's one here who thinks the electoral college is a crap idea whoever wins.

(People queuing for several hours to vote is also a crap idea, along with electronic and mechanical voting machines - there's an English phrase about organising a p1ss-up in a brewery and it springs to mind every time I see the news at the moment).

Being originally from California, I have studied American history (more acurately called U.S. history) quite a bit and am aware of the motivation and rationale for the electoral college

And most importantly, exactly how does it make any real long-term difference? :-/

> how many Califiornian electoral college votes were awarded to each candidate?

It's all or nothing (per state). That's at the heart of this farce.

The reasons for the Electoral College are obvious:
1) Makes the election much easier to rig, like in 2000.
2) Avoids the bad aftertaste of your president being elected by 1% of the popular vote. You get a nice big number as the difference. Sort of like points systems in arcade games.

Banana republic, except with imported bananas culled from de facto slave labor.

hhp

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3977295.stm

It seems that Americans (at least in Colorado) don't really care for Democracy. Unless of course it serves as an excuse to rape and pillage. Fits in the overall trend towards telling other people how to live their lives, like not be gay. Free, tolerant society my finial. A model for the world, eh? Pathetic, provincial peons.

hhp

Man, you guys really seem to like that other guy.
At least that's what is received in Germany. We know that you can cope a lot, there was no need to prove it for another four years.

Hope you feel a lot more secure now. Not that I want to accuse all the americans - just the absolute majority.

This phenomenon is like an inverted gaussian-curve. Very low level in the middle and intellectully rising on both extremes. What about splitting the country twice. Give it to the russians, man, they errected only one, small, wall. You'd have the chance for two - and they'd be huge.

Excuse me for being so sarcastic, but there are few options left.

Servus

Dominik

Verdana is great. It's open, and has a generous x-height, but at
anything over 12 point, and especially the bold at those sizes,
it's very clunky (ugly). I've been known to mix Arial and Verdana
(gasp)... using Verdana for body text (11pt, usually) and
captions (9pt) and using Arial for headlines and large call-outs.

Mixing sans like this is blasphemous in some circles, but on the
web, where options are limited, I find it works well.

Wow, I think Dana just got trounced by Hrant in proxy for
William. I think that's a first. Since I read Bringhurst's book,
which William also heartedly recommends, am I next?

Now I'm going to shut up because I want to look into this
republic vs. democracy thing before it comes up again in, let's
see, about 1.5 days.

Ahem, and in the meantime, I'll still be mixing Verdana and Arial.