Helvetica is the Neue Thing

Web font selection is terrible. So terrible it’s frustrating. This site was previously all typeset in Trebuchet MS, which is a very interesting typeface. It’s a humanist typeface and it can convey modernity with a hint of playfulness. The reason why the entire site was typeset in a single face was that nothing really blends well with it. However, a single typeface hinders readability, so I decided to find new fonts.

A modern trend in web typography is to set the body text in a small-sized Verdana and headlines in Georgia. So this, naturally, was my first choice. Almost immediately it became clear to me that a serif font does not fit the design aesthetics of the site: it’s too formal. However, as my palette was limited, I decided I would try some other serif fonts. To get around the limitations of the web, I wrote a PHP script that received a string of text as a GET parameter and would take in a font and use the GD functions to return a PNG image that could be used on a page. I tried this with a variety of fonts, and while it did work, I was unsatisfied with load times and the anti-aliasing quality (plus it only confirmed that serif fonts did not work with the site).

I then started playing around again with the few web safe fonts I have access to and I settled on an interesting combination: Verdana for the headlines and (hopefully) Helvetica Neue for the body text. Unfortunately, not all people have the Helvetica Neue so it will have to degrade to Helvetica, or worse yet, it’s knock-off cousin, Arial. But this font combination works well. Verdana is a blocky (when used large) font that has large, strong, open letter forms. Helvetica on the other hand, is a narrow, rounded, and light font. So while the two fonts are both sans serif, they generate enough contrast that mitigates this similarity.

This marks only the second “major” change to the site’s design in over a year. I’ve decided to take a new approach with the site: instead of drastically changing the site every few months, incrementially make subtle changes where necessary. This font change I do think was necessary and should increase readability. The previous change was reducing the size of the header and lightening the page background, both of which also increased readability. (See a common theme here?). This approach forces you to think about your site in a different way, and instead of trying to tear down all your previous work, it helps build upon it, only tinkering with the portions that need fixing.

Apart from that, some of the sites internals have changed. Namely, the download system has been rewritten (it used to generate ZIP and TAR packages on the fly, but I have changed it to now just stream pre-made packages to reduce server load and so that I can ensure the quality of the packages). Also, I added a section to the site on source repositories, and I cleaned up the contact form.