{"id":759,"date":"2024-01-26T23:13:13","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T23:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/?p=759"},"modified":"2024-02-17T17:46:06","modified_gmt":"2024-02-17T17:46:06","slug":"on-the-new-default-font-aptos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/?p=759","title":{"rendered":"On the new default font: Aptos"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Given my surname, Bookstaber (German for <em>speller<\/em>), I could be more of a typeface geek.  At least I am paying enough attention to appreciate the appearance of a new default font in Microsoft Office: <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/microsoft-design\/a-change-of-typeface-microsofts-new-default-font-has-arrived-f200eb16718d\" target=\"_blank\">Aptos has replaced Calibri<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I never felt completely comfortable with Calibri, though I can&#8217;t articulate why.  I can point to one particular failure, which it shares with many other fonts: Upper-case I (&#8220;eye&#8221;) and lower-case l (&#8220;ell&#8221;) are virtually indistinguishable.  There&#8217;s no reason for a workhorse typeface to perpetrate such an ambiguity.  (Aptos, like others, avoids this by giving the <em>l<\/em> a little tail, as shown in the image below.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other ambiguities that appear in many typefaces:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Lower a that looks too much like lower o.  See, for example, Century Gothic below.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Insufficiently distinct upper O and number 0.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Upper Q that is insufficiently distinct from upper O.  This has become particularly annoying where TV manufacturers have begun using the term &#8220;QLED&#8221; to describe their displays, sowing confusion with the distinctly superior and more expensive &#8220;OLED&#8221; (organic LED) technology.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"682\" height=\"390\" src=\"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/TypefaceAmbiguities.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-760\" srcset=\"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/TypefaceAmbiguities.png 682w, https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/TypefaceAmbiguities-300x172.png 300w, https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/TypefaceAmbiguities-640x366.png 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 682px) 100vw, 682px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Typeface Ambiguities<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Given my surname, Bookstaber (German for speller), I could be more of a typeface geek. At least I am paying&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[34],"tags":[33,32],"class_list":["post-759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing","tag-editing","tag-typography","post-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/TypefaceAmbiguities.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":775,"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions\/775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/david.bookstaber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}