I asked a question about typography for Cites & Insights on December 4–and got four answers.
Based in part on those answers, I revised the question on December 6–and got some more responses, of which I count two new actual answers.
Which isn’t bad, really–but I’ve also looked at Urchin stats for the past week:
- In addition to RSS reads, those two posts have been viewed directly 264 and 183 times respectively.
- The first test C&I version (Constantia) has been downloaded 53 times and viewed 343 times (I can never quite figure out what pageviews for PDFs really mean, and have consistently ignored them in doing stats for C&I readership)…
- The second test C&I version (Berkeley) has been downloaded 17 times and viewed 159 times.
One reading for this is that 20% of those who viewed the first post directly thought it was worth downloading the test version–and 10% of those who did so have opinions. That’s not an improbable or necessarily unfortunate reading. For the second post, it would suggest that 10% of direct post readers decided to look at the test version–but about 20% of those folks had comments. Also not unlikely.
Chances Are, Most People Don’t Care
Typography isn’t high on most people’s list of concerns, and that’s as it should be, particularly for any well-designed serif face used for print publications: To a lesser or greater extent, the typeface is supposed to disappear behind the content.
So if you read C&I and don’t really care what typeface I use (assuming I won’t go entirely nuts and start using Comic Sans or Copperplate Gothic or Kidz or something…), there’s no reason for you to respond. All three options are extremely readable on the page and at least fairly readable on the screen…and I don’t plan to change the (underdesigned) HTML version at this point. (And if you just love Arial or Helvetica: Nope, there’s no way the print C&I will start using any sans typeface, much less those.)
But In Case You Do…
Here’s one more chance–and, given that most comments appear within the first three days after a post anyway, I’m moving the deadline for responses up to noon on Wednesday, December 16, after which I’ll start working on layout for the next issue.
Here’s the deal–and feel free to ignore it if you really don’t care.
- Take a look at the Constantia version of Volume 9, Issue 13 (if you haven’t already done so).
- But also take a look at the Berkeley version of Volume 9, Issue 13.
- And compare both of these to the published Berkeley Book version.
- Tell me which you like better, either by email to waltcrawford at gmail dot com or as a comment on either this or the other post.
Thanks! I’ll stop bugging y’all about this.
