On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 4:42 PM, Rob Lanphier <[email protected]> wrote:
> tl;dr: His stack still lists HelveticaNeue as the first font, but proposes
> Arimo as a web font which may well look better on MS Windows.  Arimo ships
> with ChromeOS.

So, what would be the downside of listing a font like Arimo for
sans-serif and Libertine for serif first in the stack? While not
affecting the reader experience for a significant number of users, it
would still be a symbolic expression of a preference for freely
licensed fonts, and a conscious choice of a beautiful font for readers
that have installed it.

There may be practical and aesthetic arguments against these or other
specific free fonts; if so, it would be good to hear those arguments
spelled out. I do agree that if "Helvetica Neue" is only installed on
Macs and costs $30 for everyone, it's a pretty idiosyncratic choice as
a primary font to specify. :-) Surely if the font requires downloading
on the majority of platforms anyway, we may as well specify a free one
before the non-free one.

As for webfonts, given the ULS experience I'd be very leery of the
performance impact, both in terms of delivering the font and any
unintended re-rendering flashes.

Erik

-- 
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation

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