I am also curious about the relative popularity of typography on HN... it seems to gain the interest of HN readers more than most other forms of design or art....?
My humble guess is because typography is really just a (mostly non-political/religious) form of psychological and philosophical debates.
Look at the discussion surrounding the typography on Pope Francis' tombstone to see how the typography conversation/debate easily transcended the religious background it originated from, which seems atypical to me.
OK, can someone please explain to me how the 'arena' swimming wear brand chose the kerning for their logo 50 years ago to be the way it is now? This 're' combination is killing me every time I see it.
I don’t know why but nerds love typography. I sure do :)
Maybe something about the fact that it’s familiar for people working with computers. It’s approachable (needs a keyboard and some fonts), familiar (we spend our time typing and reading), well defined (it’s a succession of a finite number of shapes that are also well defined, not as Freeform as a drawing).
There's still people that don't know the difference between serif and sans-serif. That's shocking to me, yet just another sign of how deep a rabbit hole I find myself with fonts. I've done desktop layout and graphic design for print, video, web, so working with fonts is without a doubt something I absolutely hate. When it comes to computers the top two things on my hate list is 1) printing, 2) fonts. PTSD from the bad ol' days getting fonts and printers to install, then getting the printer to actually work as expected. The amount of time I've spent looking over fonts with clients and listening to them discuss pros/cons. It all just sends shivers up and down the spine.
Come on, I know some EU newspapers that put ads in print with DPI below 300. No one care, not the publishers, not even the advertisers who pay for that.
It’s an interesting middle ground between technology, psychology and art. As I said in the article when I compared the skill set with that of the architect. Personally, I find that one of the most interesting aspects is the “usability” of typefaces. What is usually called legibility. But if you think about it, it’s really the usability of a typeface. I wrote about that too (and will again): www.nubero.ch/blog/011/
I am also curious about the relative popularity of typography on HN... it seems to gain the interest of HN readers more than most other forms of design or art....?