Alas, DirectWrite doesn't support ClearType, so many applications including Microsoft Word (!!) no longer use it – they just antialias with grey pixels.
Some interesting comments from the article that didn't work out this way in the end:
> Everybody’s favorite face will be Constantia by John Hudson.
> Cambria will be the default font in the next Microsoft Word, taking over the spot long owned by Times.
> I’m not sure how much need there is for a rounded sans [Calibri]
In the end, the new default font in Word 2007 was Calibri, which was surely by far the most used of these new fonts. It was easy to switch to Cambria (and it was the default heading font for a while) so that was fairly well used, while Constantia is essentially unknown.
Of all the C-named fonts introduced by Microsoft at that moment in time, I think Consolas was the one which made the greatest difference from what was available already.
Let's see whether it will also be the one with the most lasting impact.
Microsoft did a lot of great work on Fonts in the past. Recently it looked like they abandoned per monitor subpixel-rendering?! In which direction are they heading?
But the angular resolution of the eye doesn't rise. For a desktop monitor 100 ppi practically already reached the limits. Anything beyond that is just additional burden for the GPU and a waste of bandwidth. Surely you can increase resolution just to make font rendering easier, but you also have to pay the price in energy consumption or speed - without any visible improvement.
I really want to use better fonts for my sites but the double page render showing one font while it loads the actual font just looks so unprofessional and jarring.
I thought this site being a typography focused site would have a better way to deal with it's still as bad as I remember it.
Alas, DirectWrite doesn't support ClearType, so many applications including Microsoft Word (!!) no longer use it – they just antialias with grey pixels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType#ClearType_in_DirectW...
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Some interesting comments from the article that didn't work out this way in the end:
> Everybody’s favorite face will be Constantia by John Hudson.
> Cambria will be the default font in the next Microsoft Word, taking over the spot long owned by Times.
> I’m not sure how much need there is for a rounded sans [Calibri]
In the end, the new default font in Word 2007 was Calibri, which was surely by far the most used of these new fonts. It was easy to switch to Cambria (and it was the default heading font for a while) so that was fairly well used, while Constantia is essentially unknown.
Let us not forget about Bill Hill, co-inventor of ClearType technology: https://www.geekwire.com/2012/remembering-bill-hill-importan...
Of all the C-named fonts introduced by Microsoft at that moment in time, I think Consolas was the one which made the greatest difference from what was available already.
Let's see whether it will also be the one with the most lasting impact.
Microsoft did a lot of great work on Fonts in the past. Recently it looked like they abandoned per monitor subpixel-rendering?! In which direction are they heading?
Pixel density continues to rise, but Microsoft might be engaged in… premature de-optimization?
It’s duals/mirrors all the way down. Or up.
But the angular resolution of the eye doesn't rise. For a desktop monitor 100 ppi practically already reached the limits. Anything beyond that is just additional burden for the GPU and a waste of bandwidth. Surely you can increase resolution just to make font rendering easier, but you also have to pay the price in energy consumption or speed - without any visible improvement.
I really want to use better fonts for my sites but the double page render showing one font while it loads the actual font just looks so unprofessional and jarring.
I thought this site being a typography focused site would have a better way to deal with it's still as bad as I remember it.