Interesting. I'd like to see that study continued by showing participants four words each with a different g variation. I'd be curious if the detection rate increases.
Also, it shows how far removed from handwriting the looped g is to the writers of this day and age.
Normal people don't look at letters or think much about their shapes, as long as they can read it. I think in the case of the two-story g, the presence of the double bowl is the important part for recognizing it, the other details don't really matter. I know of at least one typeface where it consists only of the two bowls (I don't recall its name) and it works.
Some typefaces vary the topology of /g rather liberally, and there's pretty much a continuum of shapes between the mono- and binocular paradigms. The Koch /g and Lato's italic /g come to mind.
As for «just two bowls», Quinoa's variants come close:
I wonder whether if you showed a group of people four cropped photos of noses only and asked them to pick out the one that belonged to their best friend, you might get similar results.
And I wonder whether they’d do any better if they’d been taught how to sculpt portraits of their friends out of clay when they were growing up.
I haven't noticed Lato italic's /g before. Its ear faces the right direction, but the loop is mirrored. Interesting. Personally I don't like it, but it doesn't look completely wrong, probably because it's not far from a single story g.
It's also worth mentioning Benguiat's /g, which reconstructs the single story g from non-standard strokes.
Not exactly a classic. Don't think I've ever seen it anywhere but in a type catalog. I suspect there may have been many more weights and styles. (And look: Tall instead of Condensed!)
Teaching type design to graphic design students, in University, I found that many of them instinctively placed the crossbar of /f low, as in Antique Olive.
I wouldn't say Lato's g is flipped, the stroke connecting the bowls is curved the same direction as in regular g's. I'd say it was rather translated to the right by a decent distance.
Comments
Also, it shows how far removed from handwriting the looped g is to the writers of this day and age.
As for «just two bowls», Quinoa's variants come close:
And I wonder whether they’d do any better if they’d been taught how to sculpt portraits of their friends out of clay when they were growing up.
It's also worth mentioning Benguiat's /g, which reconstructs the single story g from non-standard strokes.
With regards to the g, I wonder how odd g's influence legibility.
Not exactly a classic. Don't think I've ever seen it anywhere but in a type catalog. I suspect there may have been many more weights and styles. (And look: Tall instead of Condensed!)
http://twistedsifter.com/2016/04/artist-asks-people-to-draw-bicycle-from-memory-and-renders-results/