Comments on: Swiss Interface Syndrome. http://blog.cocoia.com/2008/04/12/swiss-interface-syndrome/ The Cocoia Blog is the website of Sebastiaan de With, a Dutch Icon and Interface designer. Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:39:59 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: anne http://blog.cocoia.com/2008/04/12/swiss-interface-syndrome/#comment-203499 anne Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:05:34 +0000 http://blog.cocoia.com/?p=425#comment-203499 sebastian de with happy new year for you 29 april your birth day creative year for you and for us sebastian de with
happy new year for you
29 april your birth day
creative year for you and for us

]]> By: Chris http://blog.cocoia.com/2008/04/12/swiss-interface-syndrome/#comment-203492 Chris Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:04:01 +0000 http://blog.cocoia.com/?p=425#comment-203492 I like how you talk about all this like it's fact. The interfaces you showed at the top both look like shit and that has nothing to do with the typeface. Helvetica looks much better than Lucida Grande, period. I like how you talk about all this like it’s fact. The interfaces you showed at the top both look like shit and that has nothing to do with the typeface. Helvetica looks much better than Lucida Grande, period.

]]> By: Steve Matteson http://blog.cocoia.com/2008/04/12/swiss-interface-syndrome/#comment-203490 Steve Matteson Sun, 20 Apr 2008 03:20:45 +0000 http://blog.cocoia.com/?p=425#comment-203490 Apple: I've spoken at a couple of events where I point out that Apple has a schizophrenic type brand. But that wasn't always the case. The terribly ugly ITC Garamond Condensed used to be one of the most recognizable aspects of their brand. Now Arial, Myriad and Lucida appear in their products causing an awful clashing of type styles. Arial is from a different genre of sans serifs than Lucida and Myriad and is the equivalent of wearing pants with horizontal stripes with a shirt with vertical stripes. Helvetica: Not a good type for screen. The figures are too similar to each other causing potential legibility problems. The very closed counters on a, e, g, s cause these letters to fill in with blocky pixels. The weird proportions always bothered me - why would a cap M be narrower than the E!? Using Helvetica in the iPhone could be viewed from 2 angles... 1) The slim, sleek lines of the iPhone require a typeface bereft of ornamentation and utterly timeless (Helvetica Good). 2) The iPhone is a personal gadget requiring an approachable, legible typeface (Helvetica Bad). To me, The crazy thing is that Apple invested so much in Lucida's large linguistic offering for the Mac. If nothing else this would be reason to make it the UI font for iPhone. -steve Apple: I’ve spoken at a couple of events where I point out that Apple has a schizophrenic type brand. But that wasn’t always the case. The terribly ugly ITC Garamond Condensed used to be one of the most recognizable aspects of their brand. Now Arial, Myriad and Lucida appear in their products causing an awful clashing of type styles. Arial is from a different genre of sans serifs than Lucida and Myriad and is the equivalent of wearing pants with horizontal stripes with a shirt with vertical stripes.

Helvetica: Not a good type for screen. The figures are too similar to each other causing potential legibility problems. The very closed counters on a, e, g, s cause these letters to fill in with blocky pixels. The weird proportions always bothered me - why would a cap M be narrower than the E!? Using Helvetica in the iPhone could be viewed from 2 angles… 1) The slim, sleek lines of the iPhone require a typeface bereft of ornamentation and utterly timeless (Helvetica Good). 2) The iPhone is a personal gadget requiring an approachable, legible typeface (Helvetica Bad).

To me, The crazy thing is that Apple invested so much in Lucida’s large linguistic offering for the Mac. If nothing else this would be reason to make it the UI font for iPhone.
-steve

]]> By: Mark Dodwell http://blog.cocoia.com/2008/04/12/swiss-interface-syndrome/#comment-203489 Mark Dodwell Sun, 20 Apr 2008 01:56:20 +0000 http://blog.cocoia.com/?p=425#comment-203489 Great article, but do you think using a serif font for large areas of copy on screen is really a good idea? Great article, but do you think using a serif font for large areas of copy on screen is really a good idea?

]]> By: Theo A. Wiesengrund http://blog.cocoia.com/2008/04/12/swiss-interface-syndrome/#comment-203479 Theo A. Wiesengrund Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:55:49 +0000 http://blog.cocoia.com/?p=425#comment-203479 Why Helvetica? It´s simple: because it is so much narrower than this - at sizes beyond 14 pts - fat and clumsy looking Lucida Grande. Sidebars should not take too much space, therefore are in need for a narrow font. What´s right for the menu bar isn´t appropriate for longer lines of text. It´s true that Helvetica even hinted does not look great at sizes lower than 13 pts, but Arial really does - at least at 11 pts even on a 72 dpi screen. I do not want to promote Microsoft fonts, but Arial works for small text better than Lucida. ... But ... what I really miss is the elegance of the System 6 and early System 7 Interface. Remember Chicago? It was so great for unsmoothed text as long as you stick to 12 pts. And Geneva was so economical in 9 pt on 9 inch screens. Peace! Theo Why Helvetica? It´s simple: because it is so much narrower than this - at sizes beyond 14 pts - fat and clumsy looking Lucida Grande. Sidebars should not take too much space, therefore are in need for a narrow font.

What´s right for the menu bar isn´t appropriate for longer lines of text. It´s true that Helvetica even hinted does not look great at sizes lower than 13 pts, but Arial really does - at least at 11 pts even on a 72 dpi screen. I do not want to promote Microsoft fonts, but Arial works for small text better than Lucida. … But … what I really miss is the elegance of the System 6 and early System 7 Interface. Remember Chicago? It was so great for unsmoothed text as long as you stick to 12 pts. And Geneva was so economical in 9 pt on 9 inch screens.
Peace! Theo

]]>