What this shows is that the design of individual letters is not enough to make for readability. However, when letters with different weights and styles are mixed, the words can only be read slowly, with difficulty. We can see in the following graphic that legibility of individual letters is indeed different from the readability of whole words:Īll of the letters in “legible letters,” above can make easily readable words when they are used to form words with their mates in the same style and weight. (For the debate see the survey paper by reading psychologist Kevin Larson, and this Typophile thread.) A. I will not go into the debate here, but just relate my own ideas on reading comfort that I have in effect tested in creating my revival. What qualities of a typeface make for visual comfort? Here there is no consensus but raging debate, including even over whether the concept is valid. My main goal in my revival was maximizing this quality of “visual comfort.” describes the quality of visual comfort-an important requirement in the comprehension of long stretches of text, but, paradoxically, not so important in such things as telephone directories or air-line timetables, where the reader … is searching for a single item of information. The same distinction is discussed by Walter Tracy: “Readability” is the ease with which the eye can absorb the message and move along the line.”

“Legibility” is based on the ease with which one letter can be told from the other. What does it mean for a text to be “readable”? In English some have made a distinction between legibility and readability: James Mosley reports that printers used to say, “You can’t tell a lie in Caslon.” And then he adds wryly: or is it that you won’t get caught? When I started my revival of Caslon, I set out to revive these qualities I had seen in its letter press Linotype Caslon Old Face: readability, affability, and authority. When I read Einstein’s Autobiography many years ago, as both a writer and a lover of type I noticed and remembered that the font it was printed in seemed extraordinarily approachable and easy to read-even while projecting strength and authority. And they also want the text to have an aura of credibility, so it will be taken seriously and maybe even accepted. When their words are put into print, writers want the text to be inviting and welcoming, so that readers will read what they have written. William Berkson Part 2: Readability, affability, authority

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