Berlow's Prelude font

[Si_Daniels]

This topic was imported from the Typophile platform

Not a Honda rebrand, rather UI fonts for the Palm Pre...

http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/12/font-bureau-takes-credit-for-palms-cu...

[Zara Evens]

This story actually links to Typophile, so you can get that here:
https://typography.guru/forums/topic/68935-forwarding

[Si_Daniels]

Oops, sorry I didn't check the news page.

So why is my TV not working today? ;-)

[k.l.]

Right the first comment at http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/12/font-bureau-takes-credit-for-palms-cu... -- "the uppercase I and the lowercase l still look the same. Why the hell do people do this with sans-serif fonts?"

Amazing how well propaganda works. Whom do I need to congratulate?

[Si_Daniels]

Matthew Carter?

[k.l.]

Ouch.

[Nick Shinn]

Why the hell, as best I know it:

1. Bell Gothic (Chauncey Griffith) is the first typeface to put serifs on sans cap I, 1937, to avoid confusion between I and 1/l, in low-quality printing of telephone directories.

2. DIN signage face has lower case "l" with tail, 1930s, to avoid confusion between I and l when both are rendered by a monowidth device, such as a technical pen or a router.

2. Orator and OCR-B are 1960s sans serif typewriter faces which include I and l with serifs, this time to "fill up" the empty letterspace in a monowidth system.

3. Meta has "l" with tail, 1985 (?), an homage to DIN?

3. Officina picks up the "office typewriter" look and repeats the Meta "l" tail (same designer, Erik Spiekermann), 1990.

4. Verdana and Trebuchet, 1994, but this time the serifs serve to differentiate I and 1/l when all are hinted to the same pixel stem width and height, and the visual cue of subtly different stem dimensions that exists in print is not operative.

In general, these faces were designed for "output devices" which lacked the precise resolution and sophisticated spacing nuances of good quality letterpress and offset printing.

So type for a hand-held device fits the scenario.

[bowerbird]

> “the uppercase I and the lowercase l still look the same.
> Why the hell do people do this with sans-serif fonts?”

david, do you have anything to say for yourself?

because this bugs the shit out of a lot of people.

-bowerbird

[Frode Bo Helland]

National has "l" with a tail.

[William Berkson]

Is Johnston's Underground the first sans with a tailed l?

I come from Illinois, and the abbreviations Il or Ill. are often awkward in sans faces. But honestly aside from that, I don't recall ever having a problem when both the I and l are straight. Maybe in other languages... The straight sided also save space, and maybe that demand trumped disambiguation here.

[paragraph]

Overshooting the cap height with the l ascender can help too. What is the fuss about?

[Nick Shinn]

...because this bugs the shit out of a lot of people.

Not me. I admire his reticence.

[Nick Shinn]

Maybe in other languages...

Types have to cater to all kinds of documents, and being used where letters and numbers are mixed, eg codes (postal and otherwise) is a consideration.

[Si_Daniels]

Nice time-line from Nick.

[Florian Hardwig]

Nice time-line from Nick.

Here's his illustration to it, from the related thread How does the serif on a sans-serif i increase legibility/readability?

[bowerbird]

<-shutting off nick's excessive emphasis...

***

nick said:
> Not me. I admire his reticence.

it's not "his reticence" that bugs people.

it's the too-highly-similar uppercase-i and lowercase-l.
(and no, it doesn't help if they're not _exactly_identical_.)

so i just wondered if david had anything to say about it.

-bowerbird

[Bert Vanderveen]

Thank God someone sometime designed the U to differentiate from the V and (maybe the same guy/gal) the J to set that vowel apart from the I.

It could take a couple of centuries though to get this sans cap i vs lc l issue solved… : )
Or David could do it next week.

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

[kentlew]

It's really unfortunate that the blogger on Engadget used a pre-release mockup of the Pre interface for his post -- which actually does show Avenir, not Prelude! (cf. here)

I think DB is currently traveling, so as semi-official FB apologist, I'll offer some additional information in his place.

David actually did design an alternate I and 1 in Prelude. They're right there in the fonts:

(Defaults above, alternates below.)

I suppose the final usage may have been up to Palm.

[dberlowgone]

Thanks Kent De Apologisto. Also:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/12/font-bureau-takes-credit-for-palms-cu...

>Font Bureau takes credit for Palm's custom 'Prelude' fonts; our hearts melt

I'm sorry the writers expressed it this way, or didn't read our release far enough?

https://typography.guru/forums/topic/68935-forwarding

Ascender Corporation was also integrally involved in the project though with was not mentioned in our release.

As for the details of style:

The uppercase I with serifs was presented to the client and remains as an alternate. The lowercase L with a tail was presented as well, and the client dismissed it for stylistic reasons on their own. I did not discourage them as the tailed l.c. single stroke and serif u.c. I character designs are nice until they gather in words.

While some people may believe firmly enough to only supply tailed and seriffed versions of these letters, regardless of the size range of use or distance of the user, I remain skeptical of such an extreme view, preferring apparently now unconventionally that words are more important to readers than letters at nearly any distance and size.

Cheers!

[kentlew]

> Ascender Corporation was also integrally involved in the project though with was not mentioned in our release.

Yeah, that would be my fault. I tried to make up for it in some small way here.

[k.l.]

And all this because I made a comment about a comment ...

[...] as the tailed l.c. single stroke and serif u.c. I character designs are nice until they gather in words.

Sounds reasonable.

[Nick Shinn]

Theory, based on precedent, could not have accounted for the success of The Mix.
And by that I mean not just popularity, but successful functioning, i.e. readability.

I think there's a lot more design space available for the judicious positioning of serifs, in both some-serif, semi-serif, and serifed types. Try it, and see what works.

Another thing you can do is loopy "g"s!

[bowerbird]

david-

you're the expert.

nonetheless, i dissent.

-bowerbird

[Randy]

William: But honestly aside from that, I don’t recall ever having a problem when both the I and l are straight.

Fontlab glyph names? Is that Iacute or lacute? In a sans font with a sans ui, I've grabbed the wrong glyph before.

[William Berkson]

>Fontlab glyph names?

Yes that's another case. Basically, when the letters have context there's generally no problem. Without context there is a problem.