[Pkg-fonts-devel] Fwd: Draining the font swamp

[Christopher Fynn]

Arne Götje (高盛華) wrote:

> IMHO the following needs to be done:

> 1. classify the available fonts into "Decorative" and "Desktop" fonts.
> With "Decorative" I mean fonts, which are nice for *printing*, "Desktop"
> refers to fonts which are suitable for *screen* display.
> Example for Decorative fonts: AR PL ZenKai family, this is a brushstroke
> CJK font, which is nice for printing documents, but horrible for screen
> display.
> Example for Desktop fonts: DejaVu sans. It's a smart font and a very
> simple stroked font, makes it perfect for screen display... no issues
> with hinting and so on...

"Decorative" already has a pretty specific usage as far as fonts are concerned - 
which I think is slightly different from what you are talking about. Anyway, to 
avoid confusion, I'd use another name (? "Typographical" or "Print Fonts") 
rather than "Decorative" for fonts which are nice for printing running or body 
text. Keep "Decorative" for fancy decorative display faces used in things like 
headlines and advertising.


I'm also not quite clear where the division between the two types of fonts is.
Some fonts are also perfectly OK for screen display and printing when you are 
doing word processing or in web pages - provided the font size is sufficiently 
large. These may even be preferable for screen display when working in 
applications. But with some scripts you definitely do need something else for 
the GUI (menus etc) where font size is very constrained and legibility is the 
primary concern.

- Chris