TMG-L Archives

Archiver > TMG > 2000-05 > 0957227411


From: "John Cardinal" <>
Subject: [TMG-L:] TMG-L: Serif and San-Serif: The Movie
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 20:30:11 -0400
In-Reply-To: <390DE65F.12BC7A73@epix.net>


I don't *really* want to get into this debate, but I heard about an
interesting experiment many years ago and I wanted to share it with you. The
premise was that serif typefaces were easier to read because there were more
differences between the characters. I have no idea where I heard that, or
about the experiment:

Print two paragraphs of text, one in serif, one in sans-serif. Print at 14
pt or so, just a little bigger than "normal". Now use a blank sheet of paper
to cover all but the top half of the top line of letters. Try to read the
text, sliding the blank sheet down to expose more lines, but still covering
the bottom half of the letters. Now ask yourself this question: Why
paragraph was easier to read?

This is not science, or even a good survey, but everyone in the small group
who was involved came away with the same answer: the serif font was easier
to read than the sans-serif font when you could only see the tops of the
letters.

And at the risk of jumping in too deep, every book in my bookshelf, and
every book, pamphlet, catalog, and manual on my desk uses serif fonts for
the body text. In some cases, the serifs are very "light", but they are
still serif. On the other hand, I like the look of san-serif fonts and other
than trying to distinguish lowercase "L" from capital "I", I find them no
harder to read.

Be gentle.

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