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9 Responses
Pro
Tim Brown
This afternoon's release: Freight Text.
4 months ago
Wish Freight’s ultra tight letterspacing was loosened for this release. Can adjust it in print, but not on web.
4 months ago
Pro
Tim Brown
As a web designer I've never had the opportunity to worry about adjustments like that ... but even back in college, when I was doing print work, I always stuck by the general advice: don't mess with fonts.
I can certainly appreciate tracking adjustments in, say, all-caps settings, depending on the context. But if ordinarily-set Freight Text should be a bit more loose, wouldn't it have been designed that way?
4 months ago
Overall spacing is fairly subjective, but small type generally needs looser spacing and large type needs tighter spacing. I believe Darden's theory is that it's easier to release all fonts with tighter spacing (for large settings) and make the more experienced text typesetters loosen them than do it the other way around and rely on folks to tighten the spacing when large. Personally, I think this is an odd approach, especially when a family is specifically named with text use in mind, so maybe I remember him wrong. In any event, I'm certainly not the only one who thinks Freight Text is far too tight for text.
4 months ago
BTW, Freight Sans and Text once had even smaller word spaces. They were adjusted when the OT version was released but I don't think the letterspacing was. It probably should have been.
4 months ago
Rebound
0.01rem Letterspacing
by Tim Brown
You're totally right, Stephen. Not that I doubted your advice. I tried applying a letter-spacing of 0.01rem, and there's a noticeable improvement in Firefox. See the full shot (attached) or use Firefox to flip between the unspaced and letterspaced texts.
Safari does not seem to respond to this letter-spacing value. It only reacts to values equal to or greater than 0.062rem, at which point it appears to round up to 0.1rem (much too loose).
4 months ago
Exactly. Until all the browsers respect fine letterspacing units the spacing of the font itself is critical.
4 months ago
I've been taking the 'trust the type designer' approach too.. good to know it's not always appropriate!
4 months ago
Nothing inherently wrong with trusting the type designer — especially if he has a reputation for good work — but it's important to know that they aren't omnipotent. Fonts aren't one-size-fits-all. Even the best require adjustment to fit the use.
4 months ago