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Subject:Re: Font sizes for different text elements From:Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:57:59 -0700
On my printer, the lowercase x in Garamond 12 is almost exactly the
same height as the one in Arial 10.
On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 12:47 PM, voxwoman<voxwoman -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> Garamond appears smaller because it's x-height is much smaller than Arial's.
> Arial is really poor-man's Helvetica. (The x-height is the height of the
> lower-case x, which defines the height of all lowercase letters in a font.
> These vary widely among fonts as do the height ratios from upper to lower
> case)
>
> I would not recommend going smaller than 10-pt type on anything that you
> want people over 40 to be able to read w/o straining.
>
> If Garamond is seemingly too small in comparison, why not try other serif
> fonts, such as Bookman, that have larger x-heights, and won't appear so
> small relative to your san-serif fonts.
>
> A very interesting read, for those interested in the minutia of fonts, is:
> “Exploring Typography: An in-depth guide to the art & techniques of
> Designing with Type” by Tova Rabinowitz, Thompson / Delmar Learning, 2006
>
> -Wendy
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