![]() Trying to read a font that doesn’t present an even texture is like trying to listen to a symphony with a jackhammer sporadically pounding in the orchestra pit. Thus, the inherent differences between the letters shine through, rather than those inherent differences being muddied by haphazard variations. An even texture indicates that the visual weights of the individual letters are well-balanced. So when you set a block of text in a given typeface, that block of text should have an overall even texture. A good typeface lets those inherent differences between letters shine through, while maintaining harmony between all of the letters. ![]() If letters didn’t differ from one another, we wouldn’t be able to read them and get information from them. For example, an “x” is totally different from an “i.” That’s the very basis of letters. Each letter is inherently different from other letters. Letters do the job of conveying language. Instead, I mean the “texture” of an overall block of text set in Papyrus. I don’t mean the “texture” in the sense of the various nicks or scratches on the edges of Papyrus letters. One of the most important fundamentals by which to analyze a typeface is that of texture. Keep in mind that Papyrus is what you would call a “display” font, which means it was never intended to be used in blocks of body copy in the first place – not that that has stopped anyone from using it for their term paper on ancient Mesopotamian economics.Įven though Papyrus is a display font, seeing it set in body copy still helps us analyze how well it balances visual weight. Here I’ve set blocks of body copy in Papyrus, Garamond, and Comic Sans. So, I set out to compare and contrast the qualities of Comic Sans and Papyrus with the qualities of the most beloved typeface – Garamond. If Papyrus is the second-most hated font, next to Comic Sans, it makes sense to define Papyrus’s “bad”-ness in comparison with Comic Sans. Surprisingly, I didn’t find this to be true. If it’s so hated, clearly it must be lacking in fundamentals. To start off, let’s look at Papyrus’s fundamentals as a typeface. The surprisingly solid typographic fundamentals of Papyrus One that sends an important message about the potential downfall of civilization. I believe that James Cameron’s use of Papyrus was an artistic choice. And no, not necessarily because of any aesthetic quality the font has. The most surprising finding of all was that Papyrus could potentially be the perfect font for the film Avatar. There were things I learned about Papyrus that deepened my dislike of the font, but there were other things that helped me appreciate it. (I wish I was kidding.) I’ve edited it down to this long blog post. I spent over a year writing a novel’s worth of words trying to untangle the mess. So, I set about the arduous task of breaking down Why You Hate Papyrus. It’s another thing entirely for it to be used to represent what would become the top-grossing movie of all time. So I think it behooves us to get to the bottom of it and report it.It’s one thing for Papyrus to be used on the sign of a strip-mall bakery. This means you lose confidence in your display, and even sometimes notice real problems that you dismiss as being artifacts when they aren't. It's also disconcerting when the on-screen display doesn't match the printed product if it is off in one place, then you never know where else it will be off. I don't think anyone is concerned that it might print like this (though that'd be a pretty severe calamity!). Well, I think the reason to "worry" is primarily that it's ugly and looks bad and is hard to work in. I certainly wouldn't worry about it back in the days of OS8 and OS9 and Quark XPress, a user had to simply accept the jaggies onscreen, knowing that the output would be correct. But now I guess he just meant "the part of the software the displays the font on the screen." There may be some confusion about what is meant by "the display." When Peter wrote earlier, "Definitely looks like a problem with the display," I thought he meant either a hardware limit or a fundamental limit. It's linked from the top of the post, but the older thread was Indesign 5.5 displays text with ragged edge, and the new thread (this one) is Text appears jagged, unless zoomed into 100 percent. ![]() ![]() Send me a link to the other thread if you would. ![]()
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