blog! “Fonts with threatening auras”
I was browsing the web recently when I can across this utter horror show of a font. Warning, not for the faint of heart. The thing is, I can't adequately describe why I - and many others - find it so disturbing. In all my years of reading English, I've never found a font which […]
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#font #usability
@Edent Mmm… I reckon it looks like it's rendered with a lag:
• Imagining a draw cursor trundling along from the top-left corner pixel to the bottom-right, rows first (as we read)
• It draws a row, moves onto the next one, but isn't quick enough to start drawing it at the right place
So we're left with a feeling of wanting it to "get a move on!"
Wonder if this font is as disturbing to readers of right-to-left scripts…
@Edent Can't really name anything worse than that. On the positive side though, I recently came across the opensource Raleway font by Matt McInerney which I absolutely love and now use in all my office-related applications.
@Edent Ooh, nasty! Sort of reminds me of the Leaning Tower illusion - maybe part of my brain sees the sloping letters as getting further away? (Though that wouldn't explain why italics look fine.)
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Leaning_tower_illusion
@Edent I've heard stories about some folks at my job installing Arial Sarcastic a number of years back- similar concept, but if installed incorrectly, could overwrite the normal font 
Original page is gone now, but luckily got archived: http://web.archive.org/web/20150926032416/http://www.glennmcanally.com/sarcastic/index.htm
@Edent it looks like it's struggling against the wind 
@Edent why is this font different from all other fonts?
@Edent There’s something wrong with the kerning and/or letter spacing too 
@Edent its not just the typeface used that is wrong. The actual password complexity stuff is junk too. The end result of all those requirements is still something that could be just 12 characters long. The use of upper, number and special characters just makes it look more complex... to a human. Far better to just use 5 random words.