Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

‘Those Fonts Are Favored Only by the Apathetic and Sloppy’

The fifth of five rules in Matthew Butterick’s “Typography in Ten Minutes”:

And finally, font choice. The fastest, easiest, and most visible improvement you can make to your typography is to ignore the fonts already loaded on your computer (known as system fonts) and the free fonts that inundate the internet. Instead, buy a professional font (like those found in font recommendations). A professional font gives you the benefit of a professional designer’s skills without having to hire one.

If that’s impossible, you can still make good typography with system fonts. But choose wisely. And never choose Times New Roman or Arial, as those fonts are favored only by the apathetic and sloppy. Not by typographers. Not by you.

(Via Antonio Cavedoni.)

★ The Full Text of Marco Rubio’s Directive on State Department Typography, Re-Establishing Times New Roman

Good on Rubio for rescinding a bad decision, and even better for doing so with a fair and informative explanation.

Sanctioned Entities Slip Through App Store Controls

Tim Hardwick (Hacker News): The Tech Transparency Project, a non-profit advocacy group, flagged 52 apps in the App Store that had links to entities found on the Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs), a designation that prohibits U.S. companies from doing business with them. Linked organisations included Russian financial institutions such as Gazprombank […]

Icons in Menus Everywhere

Jim Nielsen (Hacker News): I’ve never liked the philosophy of “put an icon in every menu item by default”. […] This posture lends itself to a practice where designers have an attitude of “I need an icon to fill up this space” instead of an attitude of “Does the addition of a icon here, and […]

How to Make a macOS Screen Saver

Wade Tregaskis: Given how buggy Apple’s screen saver framework is, I suggest not relying on animateOneFrame if you can at all avoid it. Even if that means setting up your own timer. That way when they likely break that too in some future macOS release, your screen saver won’t necessarily break as well. […] stopAnimation […]