What are your most unpopular opinions about type? I'll start with a few of my own
hot takes.
- I really hate small caps and I wish they would go away forever. I already have lowercase letters—I don't need mini version of capitals that look dorky.
- I find f-ligatures distracting when I'm reading. I can see how useful they are but when I'm reading, they often trip me up and I prefer a natural fi or fl gap in most cases.
- Comic sans is excellent. Not in a "it has its uses" kind of way. I think it's an all-around good typeface.
- Papyrus is one of the all-time greats.
I admit that 3 & 4 are
lukewarm takes on TypeDrawers but I thought I'd mention them.
Please don't hit the disagree button in this thread. The whole point is that these are things most people disagree with so almost everyone will disagree.
Comments
Agree about ligatures. They have their place, but they are overrated. Seems that it's one of the first things that "advanced customers" look for. In one specimen, in the section for OT features, I made a kind of "apologize": No ligatures because there is no need, and showed pairs.
I really don't like italic lowercase h in some serif history fonts (Jenson for example). The one that curls into the counter and tends to look like low b.
All currencies should forgo symbols and just use letter abbreviations.
Type designers worry too much about avoiding crashes.
Much of Zapf’s type is technically impeccable but really boring. His best is Book, International, Hunt.
I hate Gill Sans. I have no idea why people use it.
I hate all typefaces—except the good ones.
As a designer of complex, layered texts, I find small caps indispensable, and I especially like having italic small caps, as Granjon made them. The proportions and weight of small caps can be especially handsome and pleasing.
As for van Krimpen’s types, I find them stiff, though often attractive; I make an exception for his Cancelleresca Bastarda, a masterpiece of both drawing and punch cutting.
I always found Helvellyn rather picturesque. I never even realized it had a typeface named after it, let alone a bad one. Now I am intrigued…
On a slightly related note, a few of my favourite typefaces are ones which I can never actually imagine myself using.
Hinting might be overrated. Fonts shouldn't be used at that small size anyway, it's probably a bad UX. And where are used a handful of well hinted opensource fonts would be just fine. There is no style at 8px it's just pure tech.
“For text and display“
“For screens, print, and branding”
Hear! Hear! If someone wishes to include it in a chancery-style italic, so be it, but in regard to roman type, it is an abomination (pace Christian Thalmann). There is no historical precedent for it and it is entirely unnecessary. In fonts that I otherwise like, I generally break them open and remove the offender from the liga list.
I’d like to know, definitively, who came up with this idea. I am led to believe that Thomas Phinney may be able to shed some light on the matter.
I am pretty sure it was Robert Slimbach’s idea.
I liked it, though, and certainly supported adding it to more typefaces moving forward.
As somebody with a “Th” in my first name, I notice this combo a lot. In most cases, I see it looking better as a ligature. When it doesn’t, it always looks to me that is because of design choices in the ligature, not because there is something wrong with it as a general concept.
Now, that said, Adobe might VERY well have done something different in terms of making it a standard/default ligature vs discretionary, had we realized up front that it would be so polarizing, and remain so even 20 years later.
But yeah, I don’t think “on-by-default Th ligature sucks” is an unusual/unpopular opinion here. In fact, I think among the TypeDrawers crowd, MY take is the odd one out!
- I like drawing them.
- I like seeing them in other people's fonts.
- I appreciate a well composed or clever ligature.
- I know that there are people who do not like ligatures & that's OK.
I'm well aware that, outside the few standards 'f' ligatures are distracting and should not be on by default. They really just belong in display type. That's obvious. Sometimes the purpose of a line of text is to call attention to itself, or to communicate a mood that might amplify the words. After all, with 10 bazillion typefaces already in existence, why are any of us even on this site if we don't believe that type communicates more than the words it's used to spell out.@ Christian Thalmann said:
To see the Mc in my name as I was taught to write it, I have to make my own. ;o)