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Best faces ever

Posted Mar 26, 2009 17:20 UTC (Thu) by jpetso (guest, #36230)
In reply to: Best faces ever by ncm
Parent article: Libertine Open Fonts Project releases version 4.4.1

Linux Libertine is a major coolness, but it's a serif font. For standard
desktop use in menus or, heck yes, even on web pages, I really prefer my
fonts being sans serif.

Is there a reason that awesome serif fonts keep coming up (Linux Libertine,
Gentium) but nothing happens on the sans serif front since Bitstream Vera /
DejaVu?

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Best faces ever

Posted Mar 26, 2009 17:22 UTC (Thu) by jpetso (guest, #36230) [Link]

oops, should probably read the text before the comments... Biolinum is
actually sans serif. sorry!

Best faces ever

Posted Mar 26, 2009 19:42 UTC (Thu) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link]

Yeah, everyone prefers sans-serif for those uses. It's all about DPI. Low-resolution displays (e.g., every single monitor or TV that a consumer will have his hands on) can't render serif fonts particularly well. Too few pixels per character to get the shape in there without being too blurry or just too cluttered.

Serif fonts are easier to read, but only on mediums that can render them in fine enough detail. Which today pretty much means they're only good in print or for very large font sizes.

DPI on a few devices is getting to around the 200 range. Once consumer monitors are close to the 300 DPI range I imagine many people will end up preferring serif fonts.

Best faces ever

Posted Mar 27, 2009 10:05 UTC (Fri) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

Creating a new font is a major investment in time. New fonts do not "keep coming up". The projects you pointed to actually took many years before they reached the point when you started noticing them. And they're far from finished - DejaVu is still churning new enhanced completed releases every other month and unlikely to stop before years. So the people involved are not going to have the time to work on other fonts in the near future.

If you want new fonts the font-producing community needs to grow and the supporting (legal, software) environment improve to reduce inefficiencies. Also, regular and reliable font production would probably require companies and organisations that rely on libre/open fonts to sponsor (=pay) people to work on them full time all year round. None of the major libre/open software you use is created fully by unpaid hobbyists and the same considerations apply to major digital works like fonts.