Font consistency (was: Simple but decent web composition software)

[James A. Kuzdrall]

On Sunday 09 June 2013 18:46:55 Joshua Judson Rosen wrote:
> This point about being able to find fonts that are "both close to what I
> use and likely to be on Windows or Apple" a really good one. Sometimes
> it's really hard to do that, though..., except, here's a really nice
> tool for the task--that actually organises fonts by *what they look like*
> (so similar-*looking* fonts are clustered together, rather than
>  similarly-*named* fonts being grouped together as in most font-selectors):
>
>     "FontClustr - Automated Hierarchical Clustering of Fonts
>      Based on Their Appearance"
>
>     http://tinylittlelife.org/?p=233
>
>
> It's written in Python, and the code is available on Github:
>
>     http://tinylittlelife.org/?page_id=255

    Thank you for the link.  The algorithm he used to do the sorting was the 
best part.  There is surely a good mathematical justification behind his 
intuition.  The general approach might come in handy for some related 
problem.  There certainly are a bunch of redundant fonts in circulation!

    My font list got simplified by an article that grouped fonts by their 
pre-computer applications.  These were professionally designed fonts for 
commercial printing.  I picked 2 recommended fonts from each category.  My 
list has expanded over the years from the original 24 to 45.  But I mostly 
use just 3:  Humanist 512 (headings), Monospace 821 (math), and Prestige 12 
(general text).

    The Prestige typewriter font lives on from the Corona portable typewriter 
I used in high school and college.  It is a well-designed, legible font.  And 
quite distinctive!  Who else writes business and technical papers in an 
old-fashioned fixed-pitch font?

Jim Kuzdrall