Zompist Bboard Again

Ryusenshi wrote: ↑Fri Nov 27, 2020 3:24 am Sometimes I forget that people don't know much about typography.

I ask an employment advisor if my resume is good.
Advisor: the overall presentation is fine. But you shouldn't use Times New Roman.
Me: Uh? I know that Times is overexposed and that it's preferable not to use it. But this isn't Times, I chose something less famous. It's... wait, I can't remember at the moment...
Advisor (not listening): no, instead you should use something nicer, like Arial.
Me: Arial??? It's even more overexposed than Times!!!
Advisor: See, it's rounder and more readable on a screen.
Me: oh, you mean a sans-serif font.

For those who don't know much about typography, what is an overexposed font?

Zju wrote: ↑Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:04 pm For those who don't know much about typography, what is an overexposed font?

I think in this case 'overexposed' means the same thing as 'overused'.

Yes, I meant "overused". There is nothing wrong with Times New Roman by itself; it's just that it appears everywhere. So, in a resume, it means "I have no imagination and use the most common choice". Arial has the same problem: it was the default font under Windows for years, so using Arial means "I go with the default choice" — hence my bafflement. But the advisor meant something else entirely. I changed to a sans-serif font, but not Arial.

Then again, all other fonts say "i'm the kind of person who changes fonts on his documents", which... I _guess_ might be a minus in some contexts?

in related news, I once used century gothic on a resume

Torco wrote: ↑Fri Nov 27, 2020 8:50 pm in related news, I once used century gothic on a resume

Like a boss.

"Linguists": https://xkcd.com/2390/

Does anyone else have a favorite font? I love Hightower Text, and do all of my vaguely fantasy-esque conlanging in it. Not sure it would work for a resume, though, unless I was applying to the job of "yeoman scrivener" or something. One day it will be overplayed, but until then I am a Hightower Text fan girl, all the way. Get lost, Garamond! Move over, Bookman! (editor's note: the author realizes they have not tried Centaur for any lengthy text.)

I am also a proud passenger on the making fun of bad fonts bandwagon. It's baffling. I continue to see businesses put signs out front in Helvetica, and published authors with book titles in Papyrus. Like, unless you are doing self-parody, one of your friends should have taken you aside by now and set you straight. My work has a sign forbidding people form entering a supply closet full of dangerous equipment, and it is written in comic sans. I'm not even joking.

my favorite font is Play. It's a free font with a very similar look to Eurostile. Somehow I legally obtained Eurostile as well, but it's not freely available so I prefer to use Play whenever possible. The Roadgeek family of fonts is also very nice.

A long time ago I created a font where the lowercase f and t were both below the line, as in my handwriting, but I couldnt get it to render properly so I abandoned that project. Still, some people who saw it gave me compliments.

Some places insist on Times New Roman, like the journal I'm writing an article for.

I'm a big fan of Helvetica. I also like Iosevka, or more specifically, my customized version of it (using the extended width, and a couple of specific glyph variants). It's a monospace font (a must, since I spend most of my time in a terminal) and it has excellent unicode coverage (another must for me).

The amusing bit is that I've never seen anything other than Times or Arial used at work.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Sat Nov 28, 2020 4:14 am Does anyone else have a favorite font? I love Hightower Text, and do all of my vaguely fantasy-esque conlanging in it. Not sure it would work for a resume, though, unless I was applying to the job of "yeoman scrivener" or something. One day it will be overplayed, but until then I am a Hightower Text fan girl, all the way. Get lost, Garamond! Move over, Bookman! (editor's note: the author realizes they have not tried Centaur for any lengthy text.)

In no particular order: Avenir, Seravek, and Cabin as sans-serif fonts; PT Serif, Palatino, and Garamond for serif. Not a huge fan of Hightower, though; I have used Garamond on CVs, and I typeset my Ph.D. thesis in PT Serif.

I'm a Helvetica stan. Don't @ me. But I also adore Microgramma.

Palatino was my go-to font for homework assignments for most of college (typset in LaTeX, of course). I found it a bit more pleasant to look at than the default Computer Modern. My résumé is in Roboto Slab, altho I generally dislike slab serifs — I think sans-serif fonts feel a bit too plain when printed, and serif fonts lose too much detail when printed on a low-dpi printer; a slab serif is a nice compromise that is also visually distinct from overused defaults like Times and Arial.

Comic Sans is the only true font. All others are abominations unto the LORD.

alice wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 3:00 pm Comic Sans is the only true font. All others are abominations unto the LORD.

Sathanas exultant. All hail Seravek.

That said, I have a former coworker whose presentations used Comic Sans extensively; not the worst font, to be honest, especially for a presentation like his (it's at least sans-serif, and at least he had cool results!), but I certainly wouldn't do that.


When it comes to my go-to font, though, it's normally anymore Cabin or Seravek for presentations. If I'm writing, if it's for myself, I use a sans-serif font; Arial is good for some of my conlanging due to its extensive unicode support, but I otherwise prefer using Avenir.

I've heard that comic sans is relatively easy for people with Dyslexia to read. The thing that makes it so infuriating, i.e. that every letter is doing its own thing with none of the repetition normally used to create a cohesive artistic whole, is actually very useful when you struggle to differentiate similar letter shapes.

The serif fonts I use most often are Charter, PT Serif or Palatino (I used the latter a lot with LaTeX — I really don't like the default Computer Modern — though I switched to XeTeX which offers more options). For sans-serif, I like Fira Sans and Liberation Sans; on a screen, I also use Ubuntu which works great at small sizes, and DejaVu Sans Mono for programming. Otherwise, if I need a large variety of characters, I use the Noto family (which I find a bit bland without the timelessness of Times or Helvetica, but it's really complete) — as I mentionned somewhere, my browser uses Noto by default.

I was about to suggest Comic Sans!

Is there any known medical condition that causes one or more of your limbs to feel as if there's a very weak electric current flowing through them? I have an appointment with a neurologist next week anyway so I can just ask him, but I wondered if, in the meantime, anyone here has any ideas.